00:00I have looked forward to this day with great anticipation.
00:05This whole trip has meant a great deal to me, especially to this point the opportunity
00:12I had to visit the Gandhi Memorial, to express on behalf of all the people of the United
00:20States our gratitude for the life, the work, the thought of Gandhi, without which the great
00:28civil rights revolution in the United States would never have succeeded on a peaceful plane.
00:40As Prime Minister Vajpayee has said, India and America are natural allies, two nations
00:47conceived in liberty, each finding strength in its diversity, each seeing in the other
00:56a reflection of its own aspiration for a more humane and just world.
01:04A poet once said, the world's inhabitants can be divided into, and I quote, those that
01:11have seen the Taj Mahal and those that have not.
01:17Well in a few hours I will have a chance to cross over to the happier side of that divide.
01:23I believe that the greatest of India's many gifts to the world is the example its people
01:28have set from midnight to millennium.
01:33Think of it, virtually every challenge humanity knows can be found here in India, and every
01:40solution to every challenge can be found here as well.
01:44Confidence in democracy, tolerance for diversity, a willingness to embrace social change.
01:50That is why Americans admire India, why we welcome India's leadership in the region and the world,
01:58and why we want to take our partnership to a new level, to advance our common values and
02:03interests, and to resolve the differences that still remain.
02:10There were long periods when that would not have been possible.
02:15Though our democratic ideals gave us a starting point in common, and our dreams of peace in
02:22prosperity gave us a common destination, there was for too long too little common ground between
02:31east and west, north and south.
02:36Now, thankfully, the old barriers between nations and people, economies and cultures are being
02:43replaced by vast networks of cooperation and commerce.
02:48Children thrive, families succeed, and countries prosper.
02:55Here again we see how a problem and its answers can be found side by side in India.
03:02For every economist who preaches the virtues of women's empowerment points at first to the
03:08achievements of India's state of Kerala.
03:14I knew there would be somebody here from Kerala who would want to read that.
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