AP Photo

In the past year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] has found himself at the summits of the G-8 and Outreach Countries, the G-20, the East Asia Summit, the summits of IBSA (India, Brazil [ Images ], South Africa [ Images ]), BRIC (Brazil, Russia [ Images ], India and China), SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and NAM (Non-Aligned Movement)

What does India bring to these tables? What does India's rise symbolise for the world?

In shaping Indian economic and foreign policy, Dr Singh has drawn on two important ideas that India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put forward at very beginning of the nation's birth as a democratic republic.

First, in his eloquent address to the nation on the day India became free, Nehru said, "(Our) dreams are for...