Prime Minister Manmohan Singh greets Noble Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (left) in New Delhi on Monday as Vinay Bharat Ram, chairman of Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, looks on. (AFP)

New Delhi, Dec. 18: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said national states have a key role in a globalised economy by fulfilling the basic needs of the poor in education and health.

“I do believe that even in a wholly globalised and integrated world, states have a role to play. People in democratic societies expect the governments to deliver on their basic needs,” Singh said.

The Prime Minister was delivering the inaugural address at a seminar organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) and Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resource.

Singh said the UN was yet to fulfil its role as an agent to manage globalisation, adding that a reform was necessary at the organisation to make its management more democratic and representative.

India has been lobbying with the major powers to broadbase the UN Security Council by including emergent powers such as India, Japan, Germany and Brazil.

Singh said public-private partnerships were necessary in the provision of basic education, public health and medical care. He said the policy of developed nations to offer subsidies, even after being signatories to the WTO, was hurting developing countries.

“Developed countries are becoming more restrictive with respect to immigration and movement of labour... even in the area of trade, we have still not been able to find an acceptable basis for making globalisation more development oriented,” he said.

India wants the West to allow import of skilled labour in return for opening up their financial and investment markets.

“We cannot continue to live in a world of ‘butter mountains and rivers of milk’ liberally funded by government subsidies when the poor starve in the villages of the Third World,” said Singh, in an obvious reference to the huge farm subsidies shelled out by the European Union and the US.