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'Only India can know if it truly is safer today than before the tests'

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US President Bill Clinton's address to Parliament

Part I: 'Every solution to every challenge can be found here in India'

The first of these challenges is to get our own economic relationship right. Americans have applauded your efforts to open your economy, your commitment to a new wave of economic reform; your determination to bring the fruits of growth to all your people. We are proud to support India's growth as your largest partner in trade and investment. And we want to see more Indians and more Americans benefit from our economic ties, especially in the cutting edge fields of information technology, biotechnology and clean energy.

The private sector will drive this progress, but our job as governments is to create the conditions that will allow them to succeed in doing so, and to reduce the remaining impediments to trade and investment between us.

Our second challenge is to sustain global economic growth in a way that lifts the lives of rich and poor alike, both across the within national borders. Part of the world today lives at the cutting edge of change, while a big part still exists at the bare edge of survival. Part of the world lives in the information age. Part of the world does not even reach the clean water age. And often the two side by side. It is unacceptable, it is intolerable; thankfully, it is unnecessary and is far more than a regional crisis. Whether around the corner or around the world, object poverty in this new economy is an affront to our common humanity and a threat to our common prosperity.

The problem is truly immense, as you know far better than I. But perhaps for the first time in all history, few would dispute that we know the solutions, We know we need to invest in education and literacy, so that children can have soaring dreams and the tools to realize them. We know we need to make a special commitment in developing nations to the education of young girls, as well as young boys. Everything we have learned about development tells us that when women have access to knowledge, to health, to economic opportunity and to civil rights, children thrive, families succeed and countries prosper.

Here again, we see how a problem and its answers can be found side by side in India. For every economist who preaches the virtues of women's empowerment points at first to the achievements of India's state of Kerala -- I knew there would be somebody here from Kerala -- (laughter and applause). Thank you.

To promote development, we know we must conquer the diseases that kill people and progress. Last December, India immunized 140 million children against polio, the biggest public health effort in human history. I congratulate you on that.

I have launched an initiative in the United States to speed the development of vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS -- the biggest infectious killers of our time. This July, when our partners in the G-8 meet in Japan, I will urge them to join us.

But that is not enough, for at best, effective vaccines are years away. Especially for AIDS, we need a commitment today to prevention, and that means straight talk and an end to stigmatizing. As Prime Minister Vajpayee said, no one should ever speak of AIDS as someone else's problem. This has long been a big problem for the United States. It is now a big problem for you. I promise you America's partnership in the continued struggle.

To promote development, we know we must also stand with those struggling for human rights and freedom around the world and in the region. For as the economist Amartya Sen has said, no system of government has done a better job in easing human want, in averting human catastrophes, than democracy. I am proud America and India will stand together on the right side of history when we launch the Community of Democracies in Warsaw this summer.

All of these steps are essential to lifting people's lives. But there is yet another. With greater trade and the growth it brings, we can multiply the gains of education, better health and democratic empowerment. That is why I hope we will work together to launch a new global trade round that will promote economic development for all.

One of the benefits of the World Trade Organization is that it has given developing countries a bigger voice in global trade policy. Developing countries have used that voice to urge richer nations to open their markets further so that all can have a chance to grow. That is something the opponents of the WTO don't fully appreciate yet.

We need to remind them that when Indians and Brazilians and Indonesians speak up for open trade, they are not speaking for some narrow corporate interest, but for a huge part of humanity that has no interest in being saved from development. Of course, trade should not be a race to the bottom in environmental and labor standards, but neither should fears about trade keep part of our global community forever at the bottom.

Yet we must also remember that those who are concerned about the impact of globalization in terms of inequality, in environmental degradation do speak for a large part of humanity. Those who believe that trade should contribute not just to the wealth, but also to the fairness of societies; those who share Nehru's dream of a structure for living that fulfills our material needs, and at the same time sustains our mind and spirit.

We can advance these values without engaging in rich-country protectionism. Indeed, to sustain a consensus for open trade, we must find a way to advance these values as well. That is my motivation, and my only motivation, in seeking a dialogue about the connections between labor, the environment, and trade and development.

I would remind you -- and I want to emphasize this -- the United States has the most open markets of any wealthy country in the world. We have the largest trade deficit. We also have had a strong economy, because we have welcomed the products and the services from the labor of people throughout the world. I am for an open global trading system. But we must do it in a way that advances the cause of social justice around the world.

The third challenge we face is to see that the prosperity and growth of the information age require us to abandon some of the outdated truths of the industrial age. As the economy grows faster today, for example, when children are kept in school, not put to work. Think about the industries that are driving our growth today in India and in America. Just as oil enriched the nations who had it in the 20^th century, clearly knowledge is doing the same for the nations who have it in the 21^st century. The difference is, knowledge can be tapped by all people everywhere, and it will never run out.

We must also find ways to achieve robust growth while protecting the environment and reversing climate change. I'm convinced we can do that as well. We will see in the next few years, for example, automobiles that are three, four, perhaps five times as efficient as those being driven today. Soon scientists will make alternative sources of energy more widely available and more affordable. Just for example, before long chemists almost certainly will unlock the block that will allow us to produce eight for nine gallons of fuel from bio-fuels, farm fuels, using only one gallon of gasoline.

Indian scientists are at the forefront of this kind of research -- pioneering the use of solar energy to power rural communities; developing electric cars for use in crowded cities; converting agricultural waste into electricity. If we can deepen our cooperation for clean energy, we will strengthen our economies, improve our people's health and fight global warming. This should be a vital element of our new partnership.

A fourth challenge we face is to protect the gains of democracy and development from the forces which threaten to undermine them. There is the danger of organized crime and drugs. There is the evil of trafficking in human beings, a modern form of slavery. And of course, there is the threat of terrorism. Both our nations know it all too well.

Americans understood the pain and agony you went through during the Indian Airlines hijacking. And I saw that pain firsthand when I met with the parents and the widow of the young man who was killed on that airplane. We grieve with you for the Sikhs who were killed a Kashmir -- and our heart goes out to their families. We will work with you to build a system of justice, to strengthen our cooperation against terror. We must never relax our vigilance or allow the perpetrators to intimidate us into retreating from our democratic ideals.

Another danger we face is the spread of weapons of mass destruction to those who might have no reservations about using them. I still believe this is the greatest potential threat to them security we all face in the 21^st century. It is why we must be vigilant in fighting the spread of chemical and biological weapons. And it is why we must both keep working closely to resolve our remaining differences an nuclear proliferation.

I am aware that I speak to PM on behalf of a nation that has possess nuclear weapons for 55 years and more. But since 1988, the United States has dismantled more than 13,000 nuclear weapons. We have helped Russia to dismantle their nuclear weapons and to safeguard the material that remains. We have agreed to an outline of a treaty with Russia that with reduce our remaining nuclear arsenal by more than half. We are producing no more fissile material, developing no new land or submarine-based missiles, engaging in no new nuclear testing.

From South America to South Africa, nations are foreswearing these weapons, realizing that a nuclear future is not a more secure future. Most of the world is moving toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. That goal is not advanced if any country, in any region, it moves in the other direction.

I say this with great respect. Only India can determine its own interests. Only India can know if it truly is safer today than before the tests. Only India can determine if it will benefit from expanding its nuclear and missile capabilities, if its neighbours respond by doing the same thing. Only India knows if it can afford a sustained investment in both conventional and nuclear forces while meeting its goals for human development. These are questions others may ask, but only you can answer.

'For the sake of the innocents who suffer the most, someone must end the contest of inflicting and absorbing pain'

CLINTON VISITS INDIA:The complete coverage

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