Sir Sachin Tendulkar soon?

NEW DELHI: A knighthood for Sachin Tendulkar? Britain prime minister Gordon Brown would like it to happen.Speaking to British journalists travelling with him to China and India, Brown said cricket, a game introduced by the British to its former colonies, still remained a bond uniting Commonwealth countries. Though after independence many of the former colonies gave their own awards, Brown believed it would be good for Britain to once again revive the tradition.

“I believe it was a good tradition to celebrate the achievements of the great Commonwealth cricketers — it shows we are good sports and I would like to see some of the great players of the modern era — like Sachin Tendulkar — proposed for honorary awards so the British nation can salute their achievements in one of our national sports,” Brown said.

“Obviously, these are issues for the independent honours committee, but I hope they will consider it,” he said.  The Prime Minister also congratulated India on what he described as its ‘famous victory’ over Australia ‘away from home’ in the Perth Test match.

At a news conference at the end of the delegation level talks in New Delhi on Monday, Brown was asked about a British honour for the Indian master blaster. ``Sachin Tendulkar is one of the great cricketers but it is not for me to decide the honours. It is a matter for the independent honours committee.”
Partnership of equals

Speaking at the Entrepreneurship Summit, Brown said he supported India’s entry to an expanded UN Security Council. He described India’s relations with the UK as a ``partnership of equals’’ and said he believed the two democracies would work together in close partnership in world forums.

UN reforms as well as changes in many of the world’s multilateral organizations, which continued to reflect the power structure it was at the end of World War Two, were issues Brown discussed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formally during official talks at Hyderabad House on Monday.

Brown said the eight richest industrialised nations of the world (G8) cannot ignore India with its rapidly growing economy. At the moment India together with China, Mexico, Brazil and South

Africa attend the G8 summits as outreach partners. Singh had said after attending the last such meeting in Germany that it was a futile exercise as the outreach members had little to do with the agenda.

Brown believes India must play a more pivotal role, though he stopped short of saying that the G8 must accommodate India and become G9. ``I want G8 plus five to meet regularly and that includes India playing a prominent role.’’

Brown called for speedy completion of the World Trade negotiations saying the poorest people of the world would hugely benefit from an open trading system. ``We don’t want

governments to build protectionist walls. “ The EU and the US had to cut subsidy for their farmers. ``We need free trade and an open system, which will benefit everybody,’’ Brown said.

Commerce minister Kamal Nath, who also attended the summit, agreed with Brown that free trade was the best prescription for removing poverty world wide. “I agree with the Prime Minister that we must quickly close the trade negotiations, but we need to also ensure that structural flaws in global trade are removed…free trade must also be fair trade.’’

Behind all this praise of India was Brown’s hard sell for British industry to get a larger share of the Indian market.