Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday invited Non-Resident Indians to contribute their knowledge to help India make all sectors and services world class.

Addressing a meeting organised by the Indian National Overseas Congress in New York, Singh said in the past governments had focussed narrowly on seeking investments from NRIs.

While welcoming the investments, the prime minister said he would like to widen the scope to seek their knowledge and ideas in education, research, infrastructure, science and technology, services and all other sectors.

India, he said, cannot afford anything less than world class in every sector and their contribution would be welcome. The ideas they put forward would be carefully examined by the government, he said.

Singh said the success of NRIs in the country of their adoption proves that Indians can do well in every field provided they get the right environment. His government would work to provide such an environment, he told them.

More than 3,000 Indian-Americans repeatedly cheered him as he spoke of successes achieved by Indians overseas,

strengthening relations between India and the United States and drew similarities between American and Indian societies.

Both American and Indians societies, Singh said, value tolerance of all religions, ethnic groups and cultural languages and diversity.

India, he pointed out, has largest number of ethnic and cultural groups and languages.

INOC President Surinder Malhotra introduced various community leaders to Singh. UN Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor presented a shawl to Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur.

A big apple was presented to the prime minister by the Indian community in New York as the city is also known as Big Apple.

The programme started with singing of Indian and American national anthems and a patriotic song-dance performance.

Singh lauded the successes achieved by the Indian-Americans, saying that it was the result of their hard work and focussed approach.

In this context, he said immigrants always work hard to prove themselves and gave the example of his own family after it migrated to India at the time of partition.

To further increase the involvement of NRIs, he said, his government has opened a ministry for them which would look after their interests and it would be open to new ideas.

On the issue of giving dual citizenship to those with roots in India, a major demand by NRIs, Singh would only say that it is being 'addressed' without any elaboration or commitment.