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Sanctions will not succeed: Hegde

Union Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde says the United States had taken the Indian nuclear blasts as a ''big blow'' to its prestige and the sanctions against India will not succeed.

Addressing a meeting of businessmen at the Indian Merchants Chamber in Bombay, Hegde said America wants global markets for its products and India is poised to be the biggest market in the years to come. Similar sanctions were imposed against China after it blasted a nuclear device in 1994.

Today, America is relentlessly wooing China. The purchasing power of Indians is much higher than that of the Chinese. ''The US has no moral right to tell India not to explode nuclear devices. We have not stolen or borrowed the technology but developed it on our own for which we should be proud of,'' he said.

''If we take necessary steps like initiating a joint strategy between the government and the industry with complete confidence and trust in each other, we can overcome the sanctions and reach the target of 20 per cent growth in exports,'' Hegde said.

UNI