12 July 2004	Monday	23 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

NEW DELHI, July 11: India's External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh on Sunday asserted that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) now needed drastic reforms, in view of the changing international agenda.

Observing that India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to be alive to changing situations, he said, "NAM needs drastic reforms."

"It requires reinventing, just like Tony Blair reinvented the Labour Party. And we should not mix "non-alignment" with NAM," Singh said while delivering a lecture on "changing dimensions of Nehruism", organized by the Nehru Centre in Kerela.

The minister said there had been a tremendous improvement in India's relationship with Pakistan. "Cricket matches with Pakistan in the past used to be like wars," he said adding, now Indian teams went there, won the series but "they were cheering us."

He said Nehru gave India an independent foreign policy, which was not dedicated to any dogma or doctrine. "Our policy has the flexibility to deal with problems as and when they arise.

Nehru laid the foundation for a just and pluralistic state and put peace high on the international agenda. There is renewed interest in Nehruism now," he maintained, according to a news report received here.

The coalition forces' action on Iraq had hurt the psyche of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. There should be measures to put this right. The new resolution brought in the UN by the USA and UK, for an active role of UN in Iraq's reconstruction, was a step in the right direction, he added.

India greatly valued its relationship with Israel, but this would not affect the rapport New Delhi had with the Palestinians, he said in a chat with the newsmen after the lecture adding, it was during P V Narasimha Rao's tenure that India raised its level of representation in Israel. -APP