Date:21/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/21/stories/2005122124160500.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

TDP chief for Singapore, Malaysia in Jan. first week

Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu will spend a week in Singapore and Malaysia in the first fortnight of January 2006, ostensibly to study the implementation of welfare schemes with specific reference to how poverty was removed by Governments there.

In a casual chat with presspersons after the Assembly adjourned sine die, Mr. Naidu said he was leaving the city on January 3 on an eight-day visit to the said nations. "Although the schemes implemented in Singapore and Malaysia cannot be taken in toto and put into practice here, they will certainly serve as a base for us to work on and modify them to suit Indian conditions", he said.

Later, party sources said that Mr. Naidu had been invited by Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore.

He said he would bring like-minded people from all over the country onto a single platform to discuss issues like reforms and welfare measures.