asianaffairs-Feb 2008

                                          UK-India

India’s stock with Britain rises

Prime Minister Brown says that in the current world order without India global decision-making bodies would remain unrepresentative of the changing world, comments
Subhash Chopra

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s promise of supporting India for a seat on the UN Security Council and for a place on the IMF high table has won him friends in an already friendly country. Equally winsome has been his suggestion of an honorary knighthood for India’s star cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, deserving of an honour bestowed, as he said, on the likes of Sir Donald Bradman.
   His two-day Indian visit in January, which aimed at strengthening bonds between ‘the world’s largest democracy and the oldest democracy’, sought to expand bilateral cooperation in a wide variety of fields ranging from trade, education and scientific skills to jointly fighting global terrorism. On a personal note it was also a meeting of minds between Mr Brown and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, two Oxbridge economists, free market globalists, and former university lecturers. 
   Brown, who arrived in New Delhi after his visit to China, said the current world order must reflect the new reality of India’s status, without which global decision-making bodies would remain unrepresentative of the changing world. He also expressed a rethink on  India’s case for lifting nuclear material and technology restrictions imposed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in civilian power projects, besides backing India’s entry into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the elite Euro-American club with only a few nations such as Japan as non-Western members.
   Bilateral trade, the main theme of the fourth Indo-British partnership summit, which was one of the highlights of the visit, has doubled in five years and is rising by 20 percent annually, with contracts worth 10 billion pound sterling waiting to be signed between British and Indian companies. An MoU between UKSkills and WorldSkills India was signed to enhance cooperation in vocational skills, while another between Indian pharmaceuticals group Ranbaxy chairman Malvinder Singh and i2india holdings chief Chris Mathias sought to focus on commercialisation of intellectual property developed in India.
   Education, a subject close to Brown’s heart, received special attention, with a promise of aid worth 850 million pound sterling covering 300,000 schools and training for over 300,000 teachers across the country. Cooperation in setting up 30 new universities and institutes of technology is also on the anvil.
   In a signed article sent to some Indian newspapers as a curtain raiser to his visit, the British Prime Minister said: ‘Over 20,000 Indians are currently studying in the UK. But I believe that by forming links between the best institutions in our two countries we can have far more than that number benefiting from the UK education system, we can encourage more UK students to come to India to study, and we can increase research collaboration particularly in those subjects like nano where our countries excel. It is for this reason that both Oxford University and Imperial College London will be coming to India to sign agreements with Indian universities during the summit.
‘So I come here as a friend of India and a friend of Prime Minister Singh. I am keen to showcase some of the best elements of India in the UK.’
Being a friend and a guest, the British Prime Minister was largely spared any ticklish questions on a subject like Britain’s upcoming new immigration curbs and any reminders of  opinion poll ratings and press carping back home.

Subhash Chopra is a freelance journalist.

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