Addressing TV editors here, the prime minister said that as far as the external situation was concerned, this fiscal year all the top leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council had visited the country.
"This has never happened before," he said. The world, he said, appreciated that India was a "functioning democracy committed to the rule of law".
"Wherever I go, people marvel there is a country like India," the prime minister said, adding that this was a country committed to the respect for all fundamental freedoms, "managing to grow at 8-9 percent per annum".
"People marvel that this can be done," Manmohan Singh said. Whatever our own domestic weaknesses, he added, we shouldn't create an atmosphere whereby a country loses its self confidence.
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