Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday voiced confidence that India can become a superpower in the knowledge industry.

India might not be a superpower in the traditional sense, but it can be a superpower in the world of knowledge, he said delivering his keynote address at the fourth Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on "India: Next Global Superpower?".

Noting that India's traditional export has been that of knowledge, Singh said "can this not be the power we seek?"

He said the empires of the future would be the empires of the mind and appealed to the leaders of the knowledge industry to work towards the goal.

Regretting that India had missed the industrial revolution because of neglect of modern science and technology in the 18th and 19th centuries, Singh asked people not to miss the new wave of industrialisation and make use of the available opportunities.

He said India's goal should be to ensure a prosperous, secure and dignified future for its people and participate in a just world order.

Singh said India should aim at rule-based rather than power-based relationships.

In response to a question on passege of the passage of the bill on Indo-US civil nuclear deal in the US Senate, the Prime Minister said he welcome it. However, he noted that there was still a long way to go before the July 2005 agreement became a reality.

The Prime Minster expressed caution saying there were aspects in the bill passed by the Senate on Friday and another by the House of Representatives in July that were not identical and the differences needed to be reconciled. And given the American legislative process, this was bound to take a few weeks.

He said that he sincerely hoped the ideas and areas of mutual concern spelt out in the 123 agreement would be honoured.

To a question on how India could ensure it did not miss the next wave of industrialisation, Manmohan Singh said though much of the recent growth was being witnessed in the services and information and technology sectors, special emphasis would have to be laid on manufacturing, particularly labour intensive manufacturing.

The Prime Minister invited expatriate Indians to openly participate in infrastructure and manufacturing, sectors that were booming and offered newer opportunities. His remarks came in response to a question on how the NRIs could help India ride the next wave of industrialisation.

Earlier, the Prime Minister began his keynote address by saying India was committed to a better future for its people not because it wanted the superpower tag but because "we want to live in peace and dignity"