Like to be India's transport minister: Jeffrey Archer

Kolkata, March 6 (IANS) Celebrated British author Jeffrey Archer said on Friday the "toughest" job on earth now is being the transport minister of India and he would want to be in-charge of that ministry if given a life again.

"I think the toughest job on earth today would be the minister of transport for India and if I had a life again that is the job I would want, that or captaining the England cricket team," Archer told the audience here on his 11th visit to India.

"If I hadn't been prime minister, I would have been the minister of transport for India," he said during the launch of his book "Mightier Than The Sword", the fifth in the Clifton Chronicle series of books.

The 'Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less' and 'Kane and Abel' writer was answering questions thrown at him by wannabe writers, enthusiasts as well as students and his comment about being India's transport minister came in response to a poser by a 19-year-old on where would Archer be if he weren't prime minister.

At a book-signing in Hyderabad on Thursday, Archer had joked: "If my second book had failed, I would have been Prime Minister by now."

He elaborated: "You are the only country on earth where drivers are taught that the white line should go down the middle of the car. I have never seen that in any other country on earth. You are the only country on earth where the lorries stay on the outside lane at 10 miles an hour.

"You are the only country on earth where rickshaws go backward and forward without bothering what anyone else is doing."