Fighting poverty priority for Singh

New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – My government's priority will be to make every effort to fight against poverty," said Manmohan Singh in his first press conference as incumbent prime minister. 

Singh did not give any details of his initiative, which has surely taken inspiration from the reforms that he himself promoted as minister of finance in the early 1990s.

This is an important stance for the new prime minister of a country with the highest poor population (47% live below poverty threshold) and where life expectancy is just 62 years. Also plaguing India are the 73,000 cases of infant death a year in addition to high rates of illiteracy (24% for men, 46% for women). Average income per capita in India is currently at 471 dollars (1.29 dollars/day).

Singh says he want to carry out "reforms at human levels", thus easing up on the BJP privatization agenda launched during the last government. Singh has also confirmed that he wanted to sell state-run banks and India's giant public utilities and energy companies, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Gail India.

Meanwhile the Bombay stock exchange, which has fallen dramatically since elections and since the chaos that erupted during the search for new premier, is still subject to heavy ups and downs. This has been especially so since news broke out about the possible sale of ONGC.  

 "We believe that India needs a strong private sector just as importantly as it needs public participation," said Singh in the hope that such a joint economic state of affairs that would favor overall Indian investment.

Market investors are still anxiously waiting to find out who will be the new Indian finance minister, who will have to take into account the indispensable support of left wing party members among the new cabinet.  

Among those who are said to be candidates are Pranab Mukherjee, himself a former finance minister, and P. Chidambaram, a Harvard-trained lawyer turned politician. There is also Bimal Jalan, for Indian Central Bank chairman.

When speaking about foreign policy, Singh (born in a city that is now part of Pakistan) said that the peace process with Pakistan will be priority among his cabinet of ministers. Both the Indian and Pakistani governments should soon meet for new series of bilateral talks.

Singh also stated that his coalition intends to have talks with Kashmir separatist leaders as well. (LF)

• india
• poverty
• singh