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The world is waiting for us, the world wants to engage with us, the world wants to be friendly with us, the world wants to be our partner in prosperity, and the world admires India in many ways.

If we dispense with some of our self-made boundaries, India can really take its place in the world as an economic power. It hasn't happened because we, sadly, don't look at ourselves as Indians but as Punjabis or Parsis, unlike the Americans. Don't make such boundaries.

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 always been bullish about India's potential. I still am, and I feel India is a country that really has an enormous amount of potential and has the human capital to succeed.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.

We look at the number of engineers coming out of India; we look at the growth of the economy, and it's clear that India is a place we want to be.

India is still considered a preferred destination for many multinationals to manufacture cost-competitive high-technology products for domestic consumption as well as for global demand.

I would like to call India a gold-mine of art. It's really the richest in the world.