PM presents ET Awards for Corporate Excellence

Mumbai, Jan 18: Economic Times Awards for 'Corporate Excellance' was held in the Trident hotel on Saturday, Jan 17. Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh chaired the ceremony. The big night for India Inc was witnessed by all the key industrialists of the country.

Dr Manmohan Singh in his inaugural speech said that the government policy cannot fully insulate the Indian economy from the effect of global recession. But the easing inflation gave monetary flexibility to deal with the economic worries, which PM said will continue through next fiscal. "Growth in the current year will be lower than the last year ... Our problems will not be over in the current year. The difficult period will continue into 2009-10," Singh said.

At the same time PM also indicated that the government has limited space on taxation because of the growing fiscal deficit. But Manmohan Singh said that even then the government has to tolerate this fical deficit for the next year to accommodate the expenditure needed for stimulating the economy.

Tata Steel bagged the Company of the Year Award. Lifetime achievement award was presented to Ashok Ganguly. A M Naik, the L&T chief is the Business Leader of the year for clearly demostrating a strategic direction for success and pursued a vision.

Policy Change Agent of the Year award went to E Sreedharan. Shikha Sharma was named the Business woman of the year. Arum Sarin won the Global Indian award. Dilip Shanghvi received the Entrepreneur of the Year award. Business Reformer of the Year went to Industial Minister Kamal Nath.

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)