Too much India flavour of 2007 in UK

LONDON: India was truly the flavour of the year 2007 in the UK and the two countries are poised to further consolidate their relations with Gordon Brown expected to embark on his maiden visit to New Delhi as Prime Minister next month.
   
Though there has been a change of guard at No. 10, Downing Street, with Brown taking over from Tony Blair in June this year, the UK's focus on India never diminished and instead it was on the rise.
   
Brown, who had visited India as Chancellor in January this year, has pledged to accord "very high priority" to strengthen and deepen relations with a "pulsating, dynamic India."
   
India has emerged as one of Britain's foremost partners in trade and in 2007, relations between the two countries have been universally described as the "best ever."
    
Britain strongly supports India's candidature for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and has committed itself to continuing to work with New Delhi to achieve this.
   
Their relations are also marked by the presence of over one million people of Indian-origin in Britain, where their growing economic prosperity has come to be encompassed in the expression, 'the strength of the brown pound'.
   
The year also witnessed the election of India's High Commissioner to the UK, Kamalesh Sharma, as the next Secretary General of the Commonwealth.
   
66-year-old Sharma, who is scheduled to step down in a couple of months before taking over as Commonwealth Secretary General on April 1, 2008, is of the view that the Indo-UK relationship has never been as excellent as now.
   
The relationship was increasingly marked by a new resonance - of Indian companies taking over British businesses and creating jobs in Britain, and British companies outsourcing low and high-end work to India to exploit India's strengths in intellectual property and low-cost economy.
   
The Tata Group, headed by Ratan Tata, pulled off India's biggest-ever takeover of an overseas company in January by winning a pitched battle to buy Anglo-Dutch steel-maker Corus Group for about 12 billion dollars a deal that made it the world's fifth largest producer of the commodity.
   
In May, Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya bought Scotch maker Whyte & Mackay for more than half a  billion dollars.
  
Global outsourcing major Hinduja TMT forayed into the legal process outsourcing (LPO) segment by entering into a joint venture with the United Kingdom's business consultancy firm Centric and one of India's leading law firms, Fox Mandal Little.
   
The new joint venture company - Centric LPO - provides legal outsourcing services to multinational companies and international law firms.
   
Reliance Life Sciences, a Reliance Group company, acquired UK-based GeneMedix Plc for 14.6 million pounds.
   
On the other hand, Vodafone Plc, British telecom major, acquired the controlling stake in Indian mobile telephony firm Hutch-Essar for 11.1 billion dollars after a fierce four-way battle in February.
   
Finance Minister P Chidambaram visited the UK to assure the global community of financial sector reform, support to the retail industry, fiscal consolidation and sustained investment in infrastructure, even as he sketched out his vision of India in the global economy to a gathering of top British and British-Asian industry leaders in a series of interactions here in January.

Chidambaram visited here again in June, telling a select audience at the London Business School, the "remarkable story" of India's economic growth, even as he sought to attract investors by pointing to the fact that the country would require investments worth 384 billion dollars over the next five years for infrastructure upgradation, up from 320 billion dollars previously estimated.
   
Stating that the challenge before India is how to sustain high rate of growth - over 9 per cent - Chidambaram had added there were strong linkages between infrastructure on the one hand and economic growth and poverty alleviation on the other.
   
India has now emerged as a top investor in Britain. Every regional development agency is vying with each other to court Indian business and Bollywood producers to come and invest or shoot in their regions. India's image as one of a taker of British jobs through off-shoring has changed to that of a creator of jobs in Britain.

The launch of Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath's book 'India's Century' at the Malborough House was significant for the fact that it saw the assemblage of some of India's leading industrialists and captains of industry under one roof.
   
They included Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of the Reliance Industries; Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcellorMittal, world's largest steel producer; Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chief of Bharti Telecom; Arun Sarin, Chief of Vodafone; S P Hindujaand G P Hinduja, Chairman and President of the Hinduja group; Naresh Goyal, Chairman of the Jet Airlines; Vijay Mallya, Chairman of the United Brewaries and Kingfisher Airlines, and scores of others.
   
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited London for a day in October. He met Foreign Secretary David Miliband and discussed a wide range of bilateral, regional and international issues with him.

Anand Sharma, Minister of State for External Affairs, was here in September to address a select audience on the theme "Emerging India and its Engagement with the 21st Century World" at Chatham House. He also met UK Minister Ed Miliband, Minister for the Cabinet Office, Lord Digby Jones, Minister of State for Trade and Investment in Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The visits were part of an ongoing exercise of regular dialogue at the highest level between the two countries.
   
In a rare honour accorded to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his Cambridge alma mater, St John's, launched a scholarship in his name to help spot and develop potential Indian leaders in the fields of science and technology, economics and the social sciences.

Symbolising the increasing cultural link between the two countries, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown led the Diwali Celebrations in the UK at the House of Commons.
   
The historic Trafalgar Square in London came alive with the sights and sounds of India on October 28 as thousands of people gathered to witness the annual Diwali spectacle organised by the Mayor of London.
   
The event was a celebration of an Indian festival with Indian themes, but had a hybrid feel to it as East met West and Bollywood dances mixed with American hip-hop.
   
The year also saw Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty becoming literally a household name in Britain after winning the Celebrity Big Brother Show, performing 'Miss Bollywood', a musical at the hallowed Royal Albert Hall to a packed gathering this month and the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone launching a three-month India festival in July showcasing India's popular culture, arts and cuisine.

Dubbed 'India Now', the festival comprised several events across London dedicated to Indian art, films, food, theatre, music and fashion.
   
The event also saw a replica of the Taj Mahal floating on the Thames, past many of London's economic landmarks such as the London Eye, St Paul's, the Tate Modern and Tower Bridge before coming to rest at London Bridge.
   
Livingstone, who subsequently led a major trade delegation to New Delhi and Mumbai in November, said "India is not only one of the world's most important and rapidly xgrowing economies, an emerging economic superpower, but it also has one of the world's most important cultures."
   
The International Indian film Academy (IIFA) held its four-day gala event in Yorkshire complete with Bollywood stars and their glitzy performances where Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan held sway over the vast crowd.
   
During the year, the Royal Society of UK presented former President A P J Abdul Kalam, the King Charles II Medal, for outstanding contributions to science. Kalam is the second recipient of the award after its inception in 1997. The only other recipient is Emperor Akihito of Japan.

Another significant event was the launch of India Observatory and I G Patel Chair at the famous London School of Economics on October 15. The India Observatory will act as a hub to renew, engage and develop strong links with Indian academic institutions, government and corporate bodies to further knowledge exchange programmes and contribute to the debate on broader policy issues.
   
Imperial College London launched five new Rajiv Gandhi scholarships named after the former Prime Minister who was an alumnus.
   
The Tanaka Business School at Imperial College has also set up the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for innovation and entrepreneurship under a government-to-government scheme to promote transfer of educational expertise and knowledge between India and the UK. The scholarships will each be worth 20,000 pounds for the year's full time MBA programme.
   
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan held the world premiere of his hit movie 'Chak De India' at the famous Somerset House here.
  
He became the latest Indian to be featured in the Madame Tussauds museum when his life-size wax statue was unveiled in London in April.