Interview: A Leader Riding High; As he heads into nationwide elections, India's prime minister takes credit for spurring both peace and growing prosperity.(Interview)(Cover Story)

Byline: Sudip Mazumdar and Ron Moreau

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was all smiles as he sat down for an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK's Sudip Mazumdar and Ron Moreau at his official residence in New Delhi late last week. His top aides had just informed him that India's GDP economic-growth rate in the last quarter was a whopping 10.4 percent and that India's cricket team was soundly beating Pakistan in their first test match in Multan. The 79-year-old Indian leader looked relaxed and confident as he talked about his plans for a second term. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Do you have a new vision for India?

Vajpayee: I see India becoming a developed nation by 2020: economically strong, free of the problems of underdevelopment and playing a meaningful role in the world as befits a nation of more than 1 billion people. Our first priority is to speed up our economic-growth rate to 8 percent on a more sustainable basis. We will make India a service provider to the world, a major manufacturing hub and a center of the knowledge economy. In the next five to 10 years, India will be in a completely different orbit of development.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievements during your six years in office?

Without sounding immodest, I think we have succeeded in elevating India's aspirations and its capacity to pursue and achieve big goals. What sounded difficult or impossible even a few years ago is looking possible today. What we have achieved in IT, telecoms, highway construction, the nationwide rural-roads program [and] the spread of elementary education has no parallel in the past. Today the young Indians who constitute 65 percent of our population are more ambitious, more self-confident and more infused with a can-do spirit than ever before. Our big multiparty coalition gave political stability. Peace and normalization of relations with Pakistan was unthinkable earlier. All this has raised India's standing in the eyes of the world community.

So you're confident you'll get another five-year term?