Indian president does not determine policy. Here President is not the policy maker. In the name of the president, the cabinet takes the policy decision.

If the rise of European colonisation began in 18th century India, then the rallying cry of 'Jai Hind!' also signalled its end in 1947.

We must recognise that in a globalised world, we cannot remain insulated from external developments. India's trade performance in the current year has been robust, surpassing pre-crisis export levels and pre-crisis export growth trends. We have diversified our export baskets and our export destinations.

I have seen vast, perhaps unbelievable, changes during the journey that has brought me from the flicker of a lamp in a small Bengal village to the chandeliers of Delhi.

I come from a political family. My father was a freedom fighter. He was a prominent leader of the locality and member of the Congress party. He spent 10 years in British prisons. In the evening, in our living room, the only subject we used to discuss was politics. So politics was not unfamiliar to me.

As Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, had said in Shakespeare's immortal words, 'I must be cruel only to be kind.

I am comfortable at the height where destiny has put me.