Narayanan remark — PMO warns media from creating controversies

Referring to reports in some newspapers stating that the Government was cut up with President K R Narayanan for his "bitter" remarks about the US in his banquet speech, a statement issued by H K Dua, Press Advisor to Prime Minister, said, "The reports have drawn the unwarranted, indeed, tendentious conclusion that there are differences of policy between the Government and the President," the statement said, adding, "While the articulation may vary, the substance of the statements made by the President and the Prime Minister is the same."

The statement said the Prime Minister had seen several news reports criticising the President’s speech at his banquet in honour of Clinton on March 21.

On non-alignment, a reference to which was made in Narayanan’s speech, Dua said the Government’s policy had been clearly enunciated in the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament on February 23.

"India’s foreign policy of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence is relevant to the multi-polar world today. This is based on the principle of protecting our vital interests and promoting our national ideals," Narayanan had said in his address to the Parliament.

Meanwhile, in Hyderabad today, President Clinton announced an aid package of ten million dollars to fight infectious diseases and for penetration of Information Technology into rural areas in India.

Clinton, who arrived in the morning and was here for over five hours, visited the Mahavir Hospital where he administered the last dose of medicine to declare three patients cured from tuberculosis and declared an aid of five million dollars to fight the twin diseases of AIDS and TB.

He also announced a five million dollar aid for the promotion of Information Technology in rural areas while addressing software entrepreneurs at the HITEC city, where he described India as having the potential to become world’s largest economy by using internet power in education.

“India and United States can together take the infotech business to new heights and a lot of our future depends on the right kind of partnership,” Clinton told a gathering of IT professionals and industrialists that included it gurus N R Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Azim Premji of Wipro, industrialists C K Birla, Anji Reddy, NASSCOM president Dewang Mehta, MPs, MLAs and others.

“If you had not invented the decimal system, computer chips would not have been possible today,” he remarked amidst thunderous applause from the gathering. “The Indian Americans have been remarkably successful in creating the new economy. They own over 750 companies in Silicon Valley alone,” Clinton said in his keynote address on India and United States: World Leaders In Information Technology’.

Complimenting India on its achievements in high technology areas, Clinton said, “Your country has moved from brain drain to brain gain now”, and made a specific mention of the success stories scripted by Infosys, Wipro and Satyam Computers.

Describing the US President’s visit to the city as a recognition to the IT development programmes being pursued by Andhra Pradesh government, the Chief Minister said Clinton was impressed with the women welfare programme — Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWACRA) — and the strides made by the state in Information Technology.

The Clintons later left for Mumbai and were seen off at the Begumpet Airport by the Governor and Chief Minister, who presented a memento and a shawl to the President and a pearl necklace to Chelsea.

Meanwhile, nine Left parties, led by CPI and CPM held a protest demonstration opposing the visit of Clinton describing it as “imperialist in nature”.