Some mindsets may have to be altered, and
some historical baggage jettisoned
-Atal Behari Bajpayee, Prime Minister, India
Address by Rt. Hon'ble Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister
of India, at the 11th SAARC Summit
(Kathmandu, January 5, 2002)
SAARC turned 16 last month. In its formative years, it
has developed the base for a strong network of economic, social, cultural, scientific and
technical collaboration in the region. Our Integrated Programme of Action defines a
broad-based agenda. The Group of Eminent Persons has identified the elements of a social
agenda which could form the nucleus of a SAARC Social Charter. Sri Lanka's initiative for
a SAARC Cultural Centre underlines the common cultural heritage of our unique South Asian
identity. More and more of our professionals like doctors and accountants, writers and
painters, business leaders and journalists are establishing associations with their
counterparts across borders.
What we need today is the dose of maturity, which would lead
SAARC from adolescence to adulthood. It would enable us to put aside our mutual rivalries,
so that our scarce resources can be concentrated on the pressing agenda of eradication of
poverty, hunger, disease, and illiteracy. It would not let political obsessions cloud our
collective vision of a vibrant and prosperous South Asian community.
Some months ago, I wrote to a South Asian colleague,
reminding him that the common enemy of our two countries is poverty and inviting him to
take with us the high road of cooperation and reconciliation to satisfy the shared
aspirations of our people. From this forum today, I make the same appeal to all the
leaders of South Asia: let us jointly declare war on the poverty, which afflicts about
half a billion people in our region alone. Let us develop regional poverty alleviation
programs, which would complement our national schemes and strengthen our commitment to
implement them.
Ten years ago, we set up an Independent South Asian
Commission on Poverty Alleviation with a membership of eminent South Asians. The Dhaka
Summit endorsed its report and committed South Asia to work for total eradication of
poverty, preferably by 2002. Unfortunately, this joint endeavor never took off.
I believe that we owe it to our people to make another
sincere attempt. The Poverty Commission still exists; let it be revived and reconvened to
update and flesh out its 1992 report. Let us this time show greater commitment to making
our cooperative mechanisms work.
India is willing to host the meetings of the reconvened
Poverty Commission and extend all assistance to enable it to complete its work
expeditiously.
Mr. Chairman,
Four countries in our region are in the least developed
category; the other three are developing countries. As the technological revolution
advances, and globalization shrinks the world, the challenges which confront us require
innovative responses. We do not want our socioeconomic disparities of today to be
transformed into the digital divide of tomorrow. We have to take difficult decisions to
reconcile the pace of our liberalization with the needs of our nascent industries and
equitable development.
It is important that we recognize the primacy of the economic
agenda in SAARC. Our region is home to one-fifth of humanity. With a market of this size,
our natural wealth, our human resources, our technical skills and our intellectual
strengths, an integrated South Asia can be an economic powerhouse, by using its synergies
creatively and building on the mutual complementarities of its constituent economies.
We have to increase our intra-regional trade, which is
limited by a variety of national barriers. In an intensely competitive world, regional
economic groupings create obvious economies of scale. At times of wider recession,
regional trade can cushion their adverse impact. The progression from SAPTA to a free
trade area and then to a South Asian economic union has a self-evident economic logic.
Government Industry partnerships also promote regional trade and I congratulate the SAARC
Chamber of Commerce on this initiative.
We have extraordinary cases of trade between two adjoining
countries of our region through distant third countries. There cannot be a better example
of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Developing countries with severe balance of
payments problems cannot afford the luxury of this extra burden on their national
exchequer or the consumers' pockets.
While promoting intra-regional trade, we also need to address
the special needs and circumstances of the least developed countries. India can consider
further concessional duty regimes for products from these countries. We have already
accorded this benefit to Nepal and Bhutan. I recommend consultations among our Ministers
to identify specific proposals to invigorate the South Asian Growth Quadrangle. I am also
proposing that the Commerce Secretaries meet at the very earliest to address such trade
facilitation issues.
Mr. Chairman,
India has been a victim of international terrorism for two
decades now. Other countries in our region have also been similarly affected. Terrorism
uses different religious, territorial, economic and ethnic justifications in different
countries, But the end product of mindless violence, civilian casualties, economic
disruption and social tensions is the same everywhere.
We now have an international coalition against terrorism
which accepts that terrorism has to be countered in a global and comprehensive manner. The
international community has agreed that no country would allow its soil to be used,
actively or passively, to finance, shelter, arm or train terrorist groups. The recent
experience of Afghanistan also showed graphically that tolerance, acquiescence or
sponsorship of terrorism creates a monster out of the control of its own creator.
It was in this city of Kathmandu 14 years ago that the SAARC
countries adopted a Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism. As an international
measure, that document was somewhat ahead of its times. Unfortunately, consequent action
was not taken by some countries.
We in South Asia have to recognize that our cooperative
future will be significantly influenced by the way in which we can tackle terrorism
together. Updating and strengthening the SAARC Convention would provide a contemporary
framework for cooperation in this area. It would also be a powerful confidence building
measure, which would create positive ripples in virtually every area of our interaction
within SAARC.
Mr. Chairman,
The SAARC Summit has convened today after nearly three and a
half years. There is an air of optimism today that we can perhaps arrest the state of
drift in our regional cooperation over these last years. Some mindsets may have to be
altered, and some historical baggage jettisoned.
(I am glad that President Musharraf extended a hand of
friendship to me. I have shaken hand in your presence. Now President Musharraf must follow
this gesture by not permitting any activity in Pakistan or any territory it controls
today, which enables terrorists to perpetrate mindless violence in India.
I say this because of my past experience. I went to Lahore
with a hand of friendship. We were rewarded by aggression in Kargil and the hijacking of
an Indian Airlines aircraft from Kathmandu. I invited President Musharraf to Agra. We were
rewarded with a terrorist attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and, last month, on the
parliament of India- Additional remarks made by Prime Minister Bajpayee which is not in
the distributed text-Chief editor).
But we would be betraying the expectations of our peoples if
we did not chart out a course towards satisfying the unfulfilled promises of our common
South Asian destiny.
Families in Germany; an overview
Large family:
Kerstin Becker, 39 (Journalist)
Volker Herzberg, 36 (Online editor)
Tonio (99912), Valerie (7) and Annabel (2) from Leipzig.
With two salaries, Kerstin Decker's and Volker
Herzberg's family of five can make ends meet. But there is not much left over for
luxuries. Experts on the Federal Ministry for Family affairs scientific committee have
calculated that when you add everything up-clothing and food, a new school satchel here, a
new bicycle there, the time spent changing diapers, washing clothes and preparing food-a
married couple with three children invests 900,000 Marks in bringing up their offspring by
the time they reach the age of eighteen. The State contributes another 700,000 Marks in
the form of child benefit and tax relief.
Single parent family:
Joanna Payar, 23 (Student)
Edda (2) from Stuttgart
Little Edda will soon be celebrating her third birthday and
will begin a new phase in her life when she goes to Kindergarten in September. Her mother
Joanna will then be able to devote a little more time to her studies. She wants to pass
the Abitur examination to later improve her chances of getting a job. The single parent
feels the three-year period of maternity leave can sometimes be counterproductive.
"if you have been out of your job for so long, you find it difficult to return",
she says and advocates better childcare opportunities particularly in firms themselves.
Joanna enjoys every minute with Edda, but as a single parent she is responsible for her
daughter 24 hours a day. Going out and meeting friends?/ At the weekend, when Edda is with
her father.
"Father at Home" family:
Annedore Smith, 49 (Journalist)
Nigel Smith, 62 (Retired sound engineer)
Stefan (15) from Oberursel
Annedore Smith explains, "Children need personal
input." The nannies in England couldn't provide her son Stefan with enough of that.
And when the BBC, where the German journalist met her husband Nigel, cut its
German-language programming after reunification, the Smiths made a big decision: Nigel
took early retirement and became a househusband. Anneadore acceptedthe offer of a job with
Associated Press, and the whole family moved to Frankfurt am Main. Stefan attends the
international school in Oberursel, on the edge of the banking metropolis. Nigel's pension
just covers the school fees. That's hard, but Annedore Smith thinks "British"
"In England, people will work themselves into the ground to pay for a good
education". There should be better childcare opportunities in Germany, too, believe
the Smiths. Yet every family has to decide for themselves whether their children will
benefit from that.
Port 2000: A new project for Le Havre
-Annik BIABCHINI, France
A huge development project will completely transform
the port of Le hHavre and the estuary of the Seine in Normandy, in the north-west of
France, by the year 2004. With the creation of Port-2000, which will be able to receive
large vessels from all over the world, the independent port of Le Havre aims to double its
container traffic. The project will cost 3.7 billion francs and will include the
construction of buildings, technical installations, production equipment and many
amenities as well as the creation of about 3,000 jobs.
The aim of Port 2000 is to turn Le Havre, which, at present,
ranks fourth among North-European ports into one of the busiest ports in the world, at
least on a par with Rotterdam, Antewerp or Hambourg. Le Havre has already an undeniable
advantage. With its long façade opening up onto the ocean, it is the most natural gateway
from the Atlantic to Europe. Le Havre is also the first deep-water harbour that ships
arriving in Europe reach and international trade using the see ways continues to grow.
Ships hurry from one continent to the other respecting strict timetables and their owners,
just like their customers, no longer want to hear about congested ports.
Hence Port 2000 project, which the inhabitants of Havre have
been working on for years, came into being. Le Havre, located at the entrance to the Seine
estuary, is the most important French port for container traffic with 60% of the national
traffic, rising by 8% a year. Today, most of the world trade in consumer goods and
industrial products takes place using containers; video-recorders, foodstuffs, clothes,
etc. There are plans to build a new terminal entirely devoted to container traffic,
outside the port and to handle 500,000 more containers a year, by 2004.
Port 2000 will offer first-class reception facilities with a
wharf 4 kms. Long fitted with six berths with an access channel., a protection mole with
numerous entrances as well as central storage areas. Oil tankers will continue to use the
existing harbour whereas container-carriers will be directed to port 2000. There will then
be a choice of two possibilities: either storing the containers in logistic distribution
zones, or directly transferring them to the railway, river or road network, which is being
development. The Port of Havre, which is two hours by road from Champs Elysees in Paris,
is directly linked to Paris area, one of the continent's economic hubs, by the A13
motorway, and, beyond, to Germany and the whole center of Europe. New means of shifting
goods are being worked on, with river barges towards Gennevilliers and Paris, numerous
rail convoys and a reinforcement of container services by truck.
The Soletanche-Bachy Company has been put in charge of
building the wharf. Right from the start, the port has raised much enthusiasm and it seems
bound to succeed in doubling its container traffic. Environmentalists wonder about
problems of pollution. What will be the ecological consequences on the environment?
"At the same time as we develop new infrastructures for man's future, we will
contribute to understanding and stopping processes of pollution and deterioration. The
Port 2000 project will devote 300 million francs to rehabilitating the ecology of the
Seine estuary", Jean-Marc Lacave, the manager of the Port Havre, explains. As a
symbol of this, the first piece of building work, marking the beginning of the site, is a
resting-place for birds on a dune.
Le Havre, a modern city with a population of 200,000 was the
birthplace of Impressionism. It is also a popular tourist site in Normandy. Its
environment is strongly marked by the presence of the sea and it has numerous museums and
centers of cultural interest as well as green areas and forest parks. Havre also benefits
from the proximity of places, which are known all over the world such as Etreat, Hinfleur
and Deauville. "Port 2000 is a project sustainable development", Jean-Mark
remarks. "By that I mean a growth which is not to the detriment of any part of
society but in favor of each and every one of us, shared development"'. Within three
years, the ships of the 21st century will be received in fitting environment. |
