Desire For Learning Made Me: PM

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-Staff

By Staff

Saturday, November 22, 2008, 14:25

From a "dusty village" to where he is now, it was the "burning desire to learn and be educated" and, of course the country that "made me", a modest Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here today.

"It was the burning desire to earn, to be educated, that has brought me here from that village without hope...My dreams have been realised in my lifetime because my country made me," the Prime Minister said in his address at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit amid thunderous applause.

Pointing out that scholarship and fair selection had educated him while free society and land of opportunity had employed him, Dr Singh said like millions of Indians he came from a family of modest means.

"I lived in a dusty village with no doctor, no school, no electricity and no drinking water." Pointing out that his greatest ambition was to see a fully educated India, the Prime Minister said the "light of knowledge" must touch every child and empower every citizen.

"I have this dream for my people because that was my dream as a young boy in a distant village. I stand before you today because the light of knowledge has empowered me. I cannot think of any other reason," Dr Singh said while addressing the distinguished audience includng Ministers, diplomats and senior bureaucrats and intellectuals.