1989 January Volume No XXXV NO 1 1995 CONTENTS Foreign Affairs Record VOL XXXV No 1 1989 January CONTENTS FRANCE Indo-French Joint Committee Meeting 1 GUYANA India Offers Rs. 10 crore Line of Credit to Guyana 1 HOME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Making of an Earth Citizen - Prime Minister's Inaugural Address 2 Inaugural Session of South and South-East Asia Media Assembly - Speech of Shri P. V. Narasimha Rao, Minister of External Affairs 8 Prime Minister's Republic Day Message 9 Shri Shiv Shanker in Geneva to attend UNESCO Conference on Education 9 JAPAN Japanese Loan for Modernization of Burnpur Works of IISCO 10 Padma Bhushan Award to Shri Y. Sakurauchi Former Foreign Minister of Japan 11 KUWAIT India and Kuwait Sign Air Services Agreement 11 MALTA Visit of Prime Minister of Malta 12 NAMIBIA Tribute by Ambassador C. R. Gharekhan 13 NETHERLAND Indo-Dutch Seminar on Environmental Impact Assessment 14 OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN'S STATEMENTS Israel 15 Libya 16 Illegal Import of Nuclear Material 16 Visit of Mr. Stephen J. Solarz, US Congressman 16 Portugal 18 Kampuchea 18 Pakistan 18 POLAND Good Scope for Indo-Polish Joint Ventures 19 PORTUGAL Shri Faleiro Seeks Early Return of Goans' Gold 20 SINGAPORE India and Singapore Sign Memorandum of Understanding on Air Services 21 TANZANIA Indo-Tanzanian Collaboration in Oil Exploration 21 UNITED KINGDOM Indo-British Cooperation in Oil Sector 22 UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLCS Indo-Soviet Cooperation in Power 22 Indo-USSR Cooperation in Civil Aviation 23 VIETNAM India Agrees to Reschedule Credit Repayment from Vietnam 23 Indo-Vietnamese Joint Commission 24 Joint Statement 24 ANCE GUYANA INDIA SWITZERLAND JAPAN USA KUWAIT MALTA NAMIBIA ISRAEL LIBYA PORTUGAL PAKISTAN POLAND REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE TANZANIA VIETNAM Date : Jan 01, 1989 Volume No XXXV NO 1 1995 FRANCE Indo-French Joint Committee Meeting The following is the text of a press release issued in New Delhi on Jan 29, 1989 on Indo-French Joint Committee: The Seventh Meeting of the Indo-French Joint Committee is scheduled to begin here tomorrow. The Indian side at the 2-day meeting on January 30-31 will be led by the Commerce Minister, Shri Dinesh Singh while the French delegation will be led by Mr. Jean Marie Rausch, the French Foreign Trade Minister. The Meeting will conclude with the signing of minutes by both sides on January 31. The last meeting of the Indo-French Joint Committee was held in Paris in October 1987 and the discussions mainly took place regarding review of bilateral commercial relations between India and France, cooperation in the field of industry and finance and sectoral cooperation in mining, power, tidal power, coal, oil and natural gas, energy conservation, electronics, telecommunications, postal communication, railway, environment, health, agriculture and water resources. This time also the progress in these sectors will be reviewed and new initiatives discussed for further cooperation in these fields. In addition to the above, the French side has also apportioned a sum of 10 million French Francs (FF) as a trade promotion measure for exports of certain specified items to France. This proposal is being actively considered in consultation with the Trade Development Authority (TDA), Department of Economic Affairs and Embassy of India, Paris. This is expected to result in increased exports from India to France and is likely to pave the way for bridging the trade deficit which India sustains against France. ANCE INDIA USA Date : Jan 29, 1989 Volume No XXXV NO 1 1995 GUYANA India Offers Rs. 10 crore Line of Credit to Guyana The following is the text of a press release issued in New Delhi on Jan 18, 1989 on India's offer of Rs. 10 crore line of credit to the Government of Guyana: India has agreed to make available a line of credit of approximately Rs. 10 crores to the Government of Guyana for the setting up of export-oriented projects in Guyana. Projects and Equipment Corporation (PEC), a subsidiary of the State Trading Corporation of India (STC) has already begun the work for identification of such projects. Both sides have further agreed to explore possibilities for direct Indian investment in projects which could -1> make use of the rich natural and mineral resources of Guyana as well as its preferential access to North American and West European markets under existing arrangements such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative and Lome Convention for the mutual benefit of both the countries. This is indicated in the Protocol of the First Meeting of the Indo-Guyanese Joint Commission which concluded here today. The Commerce Minister, Shri Dinesh Singh and the Minister of Trade and Tourism of Guyana, Mr. Winston Murray signed the Protocol as Co-Chairmen of the Joint Commission, on behalf of their respective Governments. Following the deliberations, India and Guyana have agreed to undertake measures to increase the level of bilateral trade and one of the measures agreed upon is the setting up of a Joint Business Council representing business organisations on both sides. Both sides have agreed also that participation of Indian companies in design and supervision of externally financed projects in areas to be identified by Guyana would be encouraged. Besides this, possibilities for Indian companies to participate by way of both equity and management in the public sector investment programme of Guyana would be further explored. The deliberations also focussed on the mechanism of setting outstanding debt owed to India and it was agreed that in case the payment could not be made within a reasonable time, the mechanism of debtequity swap could be explored. Shri Dinesh Signh, who headed the Indian delegation, said there was tremendous scope for interaction between India and Guyana in the areas of trade, science and technology, cultural and economic cooperation in the best spirit of SouthSouth Cooperation. There was scope for intensive interaction particularly in the context of the economic recovery programme of Guyana and the Joint Commission deliberations could prove to be a landmark in improving bilateral economic cooperation. Shri A. N. Varma, Commerce Secretary and Shri V. S. Venkatraman, Joint Secretary (Americas), Ministry of Commerce, were among those who participated from the Indian side, while the Guyanese delegation included highlevel representatives of several Guyanese companies as well as top officials and the Guyanese High Commissioner in India Mr. Steve Narine. Both sides have also agreed to formulate a comprehensive Indo- Guyanese Cultural Exchange Programme for 3 years as well as to promote programmes of scientific and technical cooperation through transfer of technology. Guyana, formerly known as British Guyana, is the largest among the Caribbean Common Market countries. It enjoys preferential access to USA, Canada and the EEC under the Caribean Basin Initiative and the Lome Convention. At various meetings here, Mr. Murrey stressed that the Indian business community could take advantage of these schemes and identify with the economic development of Guyana. YANA INDIA USA CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC TOTO CANADA Date : Jan 18, 1989 Volume No XXXV NO 1 1995 HOME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Making of an Earth Citizen - Prime Minister's InauguralAddress The following is the text of a press release issued in New Delhi on Jan 16, 1989. Prime Minister's inaugural speech on the second Conference in memory of Indira Gandhi on the 'Making of an Earth Citizen': We are grateful to our eminent guests who have gathered here in Delhi in such -2> large numbers to pay tribute to Indira Gandhi. You are discussing a subject which was dear to her heart. She saw herself as an Earth Citizen. The oneness of humanity has been a fundamental belief of Indian civilisation, succinctly expressed in that oft-repeated but deeply evocative phrase from our scriptures: "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" - the world is one family. Indira Gandhi's worldview was deeply imbued with this belief. She rejected the fashionable division of our common earth into the First, Second and Third Worlds, affirming her belief in One World. She herself articulated this thought beautifully when she told the Non-aligned Summit in Delhi: "Our world is small but it has room for all of us to live together". Homo sapiens have inhabited the earth for a million years or more. For almost all of this period, the species remained virtually indistinguishable from the other animal life out of which we have evolved in terms of culture, organisation of society, and way of life. Civilisation, as we understand it, began some ten thousand years ago with the atomistic individual or family banding together with others to constitute a rudimentary tribe. From those beginnings till now, every further stage in the evolution of civilisation has been marked by the coming together of larger and larger groups, from tribes to clans, from clans to racial and religious groupings, to feudal kingdoms and empires, from these to modern States. Now we are into a phase where more and more States are getting together in regional groupings voluntarily transferring some of the attributes of sovereignty from the State to the larger entity. At every stage, the progress of civilisation has been associated with the enlargement of the area of group loyalty. The logical culmination of this process will be reached when the entire planet is regarded as one, when each inhabitant of our planet regards the earth as one, when all those who inhabit the world consider themselves as belonging to one family, when each of us evolves into a true Earth Citizen. The root cause of divisiveness and compartmentalisation is fear, hatred and agreed. Together, they breed prejudice, discrimination, domination and violence. Therefore, it is in the mind of the human being that the struggle must be waged to eliminate the artificial barriers that divide nation from nation, race from race, religion from religion, clan from clan, tribe from tribe, and human being from human being.