High command

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?s press conference is confirmation that he has grown in his job and has learnt to like it, and is more than capable of defending his record. About his competence, there has never been any question.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s press conference is confirmation that he has grown in his job and has learnt to like it, and is more than capable of defending his record. About his competence, there has never been any question. Mr Singh deftly fielded questions about his relationship with Congress president Sonia Gandhi who, he made clear, exercises “legitimate influence” over the government. Every word he uttered was measured and delivered with characteristic understatement, but with firmness. There was even the flash of a rapier when he turned around opposition leader L.K. Advani’s remark about him being a “weak prime minister”, by asking just how strong the erstwhile BJP strongman was to have been brought low by a casual remark on Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

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Press conferences of the type are usually held to impart information or wrap up an event. But that was not Mr Singh’s goal on Wednesday. His aim was to provide an outline of his government’s philosophy which he said was based on “enlightened national interest”. This was a dig, if anyone wanted to see it, at those to the Right and Left of the Congress who have been urging him to do this and not to do that, based on what they claim is ‘national interest’. And what, according to the PM, did this ‘enlightened national interest’ comprise? Engagement with the US — on not just the nuclear field, but also defence, science and technology and agriculture — pragmatism and ‘self-interest’ in dealing with the question of referral of Iran to the UN Security Council, as well as policies that would enhance the country’s economic growth and transform the lives of the poorest segments of society.