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Flop show, big biz talk, cold wave, Pink City

Amberish K Diwanji in Jaipur

The first day of the CII Partnership Summit 1999 ended with speeches galore even as the Pink City witnessed a cold wave.

While the CII has set up huge tent canopies to host the summit, the fifth in the series, the event is clearly the least impressive.

For one, no top foreign leader has turned up: all the previous four summits boasted at least one head of government or state from abroad, some even two! This time, the highest ranking foreign dignitary is Supachai Panitchpakdi, deputy prime minister and minister of commerce of Thailand. He can be termed a CII regular: he has attended previous summits.

Even from the Indian government, neither the prime minister nor the finance minister are present or likely to be here. Newly appointed minister for external affairs, Jaswant Singh, was the highest ranked minister available to address the inaugural session in the morning.

For CII, which prides itself in being India's premier business chamber, the absence of the prime minister or president must be a blow. Worse, only recently the prime minister had addressed rival FICCI's summit in Delhi.

The CII top brass was at pains pointing out that the current session has businessmen and officials from 17 countries as against eight at the previous summit in Madras, the spread has been achieved at the expense of depth. CII officials claim that European governments are too busy with the euro's launch while the southeast Asian nations are still to recover from the crisis to attend the summit.

Another high-ranking foreign dignitary is South Africa's Jay Naidoo, minister for telecommunications. For Naidoo, it was a return to his roots. Before zeroing in on Jaipur, he visited a village in Vellore district, Tamil Nadu. It was from this village that a young woman set out 120 years ago across the Indian Ocean. She was, as Naidoo said, "my great grandmother". An emotional Naidoo said he had picked up a handful of soil from the village.

Naidoo spoke enthusiastically about using technology to level the disparities in society. "Just as my great grandmother several decades ago set out boldly for the unknown, let us not fear the future but face it. The developing countries must get together to make optimum use of technology to catch up with the world."

While Naidoo's speech was well received by the audience, the Thai deputy prime minister's exhortation to liberalise further to avoid a southeast Asian-like crisis was heard in rapt attention. It was a theme that would dominate the session, inside and outside.

Even Jaswant Singh and later, power minister P R Kumaramangalam, spoke of ensuring that the southeast Asian crisis did not spread to India.

Kumaramangalam warned against picking up short-term funds unless absolutely necessary. This was in line with Panitchpakdi's statement that short-term funds at a fixed exchange rate caused the Asian crisis.

Kumaramangalam defended subsidies, pointing out that subsidies were nothing more than social sector support for the poor. "The state must protect the weak and hence subsidies are needed," he declared.

The power minister also took swipes at the press, saying it preferred to highlight ill rather than successes. He gave the example of how the Shiv Sena's attack on theatres in Delhi showing the movie Fire was highlighted, even though the Shiv Sena in Delhi comprised about two members.

"The best way to ensure peace in the country is through development. The Shiv Sena can get people for hooligan attacks because it picks up unemployed youth," he added.

The morning session was also addressed by Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot. And in what can be termed political maturity, Gehlot in his addressed acknowledged the effort of his predecessor, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, in helping making the CII summit a success. Shekhawat too was present at the morning session.

Jean-Francois Poncet, chairman, Economic and Social Committee, France, made an interesting speech. He said the euro would help create a counter balance to the United States. He also predicted that India, China and Japan would be the future powers in a multipolar world, and in fact, almost urged the same. It remains to be seen whether Indian officials would take up the offer seriously.

With Day One over, the focus now shifts to the second day which is to be addressed by Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde. Another seminar to be of likely interest will be the one that discusses the seesawing Indo-US relations.

UNI

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