Sunday, October 9 2005 14:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: India should try to reap the benefits of globalisation, as the country cannot be 'insulated' from the rest of the world, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today (Oct 90, 2005).

"World is becoming a borderless world. Forces of the economy respects no borders. There is no way Indian economy can be insulated from the rest of the world," he said, releasing columnist and former bureaucrat B S Raghavan's four volumes of books titled 'Quintessence' series.

"Knowledge knows no borders, intellectual property and communication know no borders and the power of information technology knows no borders," Chidambaram said, adding that India should not fear globalisation.

"The Chinese do not fear globalisation. They do not fear global trade. Why should India fear globalisation and global trade," he asked.

Making a reference to the fears expressed among auditing community on the entry of four big accounting firms into India, Chidambaram said, "Our auditing system was in a sympathetic condition."

"The fears are that the 'Big Four' would take over our auditing systems. But our auditing systems are in a sympathetic condition. Our corporate governance is poor."

Though the four majors may take over the Indian auditing systems, Indians will dominate the global firms, he said, pointing out that in many Western universities, Indians now dominated the faculty.

"At Harward, there are now eight full tenure professors," he said.