Students celebrate Children's Day with PM

Children's Day is celebrated on November 14, every year, in India. To make the day special for the kids, CNN-IBN celebrates the day with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur at 7 RCR in New Delhi.

Student: Sir, were you ever punished as a child?

Dr Manmohan Singh: I was punished as a child by my father. I recall that once my father had lost his watch and some money. Some guest at our home had taken it away but my father suspected me. I got a thrashing from him but later when my parents got to know it was someone else they felt very sorry about punishing me.

Student: How important is religion in your life?

Dr Manmohan Singh: Religion is very important because it is a source of values and I imbibe a lot of my value system from various Sikh teachings which I was exposed to at a very early age. These teachings have left a very deep impact on my thinking process. Faith plays a very important role in smoothening tensions of one's life.

CNN-IBN: India, Pakistan relations start and then stop somewhere. There is opposition in India, there are daily attacks in Pakistan, yet you keep trying for the dialogue process. Why is that?

Dr Manmohan Singh: I sincerely believe that out country cannot attain its legitimate position in the committee of nations unless there is peaceful atmosphere in the country, sub-continent and unless all the South Asian countries work together towards growth and development. In this context I feel that peace and amity is important between India and Pakistan.

Student: Do you like singing?

Dr Manmohan Singh: I am very fond of music and my wife is a very good singer. She use to recite the Gurbani when we both were young. Apart from that I am also fond of other music like Ghazals, especially by Mirza Galib.

Student: Eight per cent of India's population today spends only Rs 20 per day. With the price rise, how do you expect them to grow?

Dr Manmohan Singh: Well, we are trying very hard to control the price rise. But when you talk about price rise there are two aspects to it - why have prices gone up? In the recent years we have deliberately raised the prices of foodgrains and number of other agriculture commodities because our farmers need more purchasing power. So, it has two effects. When the consumers will spend more, the farmers will have more purchasing power. However, we are trying that the prices get stabilised and we hope in a year we will see a better control on the price rise.

CNN-IBN: Mrs Gursharan, we know you like to go out for shopping at times. Do you come back and tell the Prime Minister that the prices are really high?

Mrs Gursharan Kaur: I always tell him that we are eating Daal without any problem, but there people who cannot afford even Daal, so how do you think they manage? But even I get the same answer from him and that is that we have to import Daal and it is not easy to reduce prices. But then I wonder that there is so much of hoarding and black marketing in our country. If businessmen can be more honest and avoid hoarding we will be in a better position.