Prime Minister Manmohan Singh strongly backed Bharti group's efforts
for acquiring stakes in South African telecom gaint MTN when he took up the issue with President Jacob Zuma and hoped that the deal will go through without any "discrimination".
"As far as MTN issue is concerned, I mentioned it to (President) Zuma. I sincerely hope that this deal would go through and there will be no discrimination against it," he told reporters in reply to a question at a press conference in Pittsburgh.
Singh said officials of the two countries would discuss the issue.
Bharti and MTN are looking at an USD 23 billion deal to create the world's third largest mobile firm with over 200 million subscribers. According to the initial agreement, MTN and its shareholders would acquire 36 per cent stake in Bharti and Bharti would acquire 49 per cent stake in MTN.


No economic crisis in India: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday that there is no economic crisis in the country. "There is no economic crisis in India. It is certainly true that as a sequel to the global economic crisis our exports have suffered that has affected the rate of growth, but even then our economy is growing at a rate of six and half per cent. Therefore there is no crisis, as such in India," Singh said.
However, the Prime Minister acknowledged that in a highly interdependent world, India has a stake in the stability and growth of the world economy.
"If world economy collapses, there is obviously some effect on our country. Already the rate of our growth of our economy particularly our exports have suffered," he said, adding that this has led to decline in exports of important labour intensive products like gems and jewellery, leather goods textiles.