PM touting Left suggestions at G-20 Summit:Yechury

Kochi, Nov 15 (UNI) Demanding that the UPA Government go in for massive public investment, CPM Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, MP, today claimed the suggestions being given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G-20 summit in Washington were proposals made by the Left parties earlier.

Inaugurating a plenary session on 'Global Financial Crisis and Its Impact on IT Sector' during a 'National Conference on Free Software 2008' here, Mr Yechury said the government should implement these suggestions in India also.

The Left parties' opposition to the UPA Government's proposals for full capital account convertibility and privatisation of insurance companies and pension funds had helped to tone down the impact of the financial meltdown in India, he said.

Exhorting the government to strengthen the consumer and not the lender, he said the government should go in for massive public investment, creating more employment and augmenting the purchasing power of people.

''Instead of pumping money into the stock market, the government should increase the public investment in infrastructure projects,'' he added.

Observing that the government continued to follow lopsided priorities, Mr Yechury said while the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) had been lowered to benefit the airlines, the price of petrol and diesel, which would have benefitted the common man, had not been lowered.

Earlier, inaugurating the two-day confrence on free software, organised by the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kerala Education Minister M A Baby opposed the monopolisation of knowledge and said that software should not be a private property in capitalist terms.

Declaring the Kerala Government's commitment to promoting free software, he said the state was the first Euro-Asian region to fully embrace free software, making it mandatory to use free software in Kerala school curriculum.

The government had also decided to set up an 'International Centre for Free Software', he added.

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