India is this great experiment of a billion people of such great diverse persuasions working together, seeking their salvation in the framework of a democracy. I believe it will have some lessons for all the multicultural societies.

As the largest and most developed democracies of Asia (India and Japan), we have a mutual stake in each other's progress and prosperity.

India has, of course, aspirations of getting out of its poverty, ignorance, and disease which still afflict millions of people. But I do believe that we have something to offer to the rest of the world, including the United States.

I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

India's future lies in being an open society, an open polity, a functioning democracy respecting all fundamental human freedoms, accepting the rule of law and, at the same time, to emerge as a successful, internationally competitive market economy.

My vision is to work for the relationship between India and Pakistan which would be like the relation between Canada and the United States.

A new India which realizes its destiny in the framework of an open society, in the framework of an open economy, respecting all fundamental human freedoms great respect for pluralistic, inclusive value system. I think that's what unites India and the United States. And I do hope that working together, our two countries can write a new chapter in the history of our relationship.