The second day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Britain was a hectic affair with the PM bringing up the vexatious student visa issue in his talks with his British counterpart David Cameron, hard-selling India to top CEOs of the UK and India, enjoying a lunch with Queen Elizabeth II at the Buckingham Palace before heading off to a gala event at the iconic Wembley Stadium, which saw a 60,000-strong jubilant audience waiting for Modi’s big speech and the musical extravaganza that preceded it.
Modi was introduced to the gathering by Cameron, who while welcoming Modi to the gala event that was themed “Two Great Nations, One Glorious Future”, hailed Modi’s promise of “achchhe din” and said he was certain that “achchhe din zarur aayengey”. He renewed his pitch for India getting a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
As Modi began addressing the diaspora, the stadium erupted with pro-India and pro-Modi slogans. “Your warm welcome makes me feel home,” Modi told the gathering.
Facing attack back home over the issue of intolerance, Modi on Friday said India’s diversity was the country’s “strength and pride” and underlined the importance of peaceful co-existence. “India is full of diversity. This diversity is our pride and it is our strength. Diversity is the speciality of India,” he said, adding that despite the country being home to diverse religions, with over 100 languages and 1,500 dialects Indians have proved how to live together.
Modi said that there was no reason for India to remain poor, asserting, “We harbour poverty for no reason.”
“65 per cent of India’s population is less than 35-year-old. Such a youthful nation like India is not going to stop till it develops,” he said.
The PM said India doesn’t need anybody’s favour but equal partnership with world powers. Earlier, Modi expressed concern over the student visa issue during another round of talks with Cameron on Friday at Chequers, a 16th century mansion that is the British Prime Minister’s country retreat in Buckinghamshire where he had stayed overnight before leaving for london.
Modi brought up the issue of the sharp decline in the number of Indian students coming to study in the UK and problems faced by them while applying for visas.
“The Prime Minister raised the issue (of student visas) very strongly. The Prime Minister said that Indian student numbers in the UK has fallen by 50 per cent in the last three years,” a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said. “He urged that Indian students were among the best and the brightest in the world and it would be a win-win partnership for both sides. Indians needing quality education and the UK benefiting from the expertise that Indian students bring,” the spokesperson said.
“The Prime Minister said we are right now in a situation where countries are actually wooing Indian students because India has the biggest education market today. There’s a burgeoning middle class, there is an aspirational upper class that wants to educate its kids abroad and it’s an opportunity to tap into what has become a big economic market,” he said.
The number of Indian students coming to the UK fell from 18,535 in 2010-11 to 10,235 in 2012-13, according to a report by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
In reference to Cameron’s response on the issue, he said: “There was a lot of understanding and appreciation. This is a matter for continued discussion. I don’t think we can close the chapter on this.”
Modi also presented a specially handcrafted pair of bookends with verses from Bhagavad Gita engraved on it and a book compiled of letters sent by Indian soldiers during the World War I when they served in France.
“Presented PM @David_Cameron a specially handcrafted pair of bookends made of wood, marble and silver,” Modi tweeted.
In view of Cameron’s fondness for Robert Graves’ work on World War I ‘Goodbye to All That’, the Prime Minister also presented to him David Omissi’s ‘Indian Voices of the Great War’.
For First lady Samantha Cameron, he presented Aranmula metal mirror, a unique GI-protected handicraft from Kerala, and some pashmina stoles.
later, in london Modi had a meeting with Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Osborne and top CEOs of India and the UK during which he hard-sold India as an investment destination, highlighting the Government’s recent reform measures, including further relaxation in FDI norms in 15 sectors.
The Prime Minister also assured British business honchos that India was committed to protect Intellectual Property Rights of all innovators and entrepreneurs and a comprehensive National IPR policy is being finalised.
His comments come at a time when several countries and multinational corporations want India to bring its patent laws at par with global standards.
Modi also said that India would no longer resort to retrospective taxation, while acknowledging that such steps were adversely affecting the mood of existing and potential investors.
Soon after addressing the CEOs, Modi met Queen Elizabeth II over lunch for the first time. Modi arrived at the Buckingham Palace in a Jaguar.
The 89-year-old Queen greeted Modi at the Grand Entrance of her london palace, shaking hands with him before they moved on to inspect items from the Royal Collection, brought out specially for the Indian Prime Minister’s visit.
While a ceremonial ride in a gilded carriage with the Queen associated with an official State visit was missing for Modi, the more intimate setting of a lunch with her had been stressed upon as an indication of the closeness of the ties between India and the UK.
Modi gifted Queen Elizabeth II a set of memorable photographs, special Darjeeling tea, and honey from Jammu and Kashmir as the British monarch hosted a luncheon banquet in his honour.
“These photographs of Her Majesty the Queen date back to the visit when she was Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade,” Modi tweeted.
According to an official statement, the photographs were taken 54 years ago from the queen’s first visit to India in January-February 1961.
During the visit, Queen Elizabeth had also visited some other cities, including Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Udaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Taken on January 31, 1961, the first photograph shows her visiting the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, one day after the commemoration of the 13th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The second photograph was taken on February 19, 1961, in Chennai, and shows her at a reception in her honour by the then State of Madras where she was presented a cake to mark the first birthday of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
The third photograph was taken on February 25, 1961, and shows the queen riding an elephant in a procession to Balua Ghat in Varanasi, now Prime Minister Modi’s parliamentary constituency. Another photo, taken on February 24, 1961, shows her visiting the Atomic Energy Centre at Trombay, near Mumbai.
In addition, Modi also presented to the queen some award-winning Darjeeling tea from Makaibari tea estate in West Bengal, fine organic honey from Jammu and Kashmir, and Tanchoi stoles that are a specialty of Varanasi.
Soon after the lunch, Modi headed for the iconic Wembley Stadium to address a 60,000-strong audience at the ‘UK Welcomes Modi’ event.
On Thursday, India and the UK announced deals worth 9 billion pounds as they inked a civil nuclear pact and decided to collaborate in Defence and cyber security besides launching a railway Rupee bond in the london market.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Indo-UK Healthcare, a consortium of Indo-British promoters, committed to invest over Rs 10,000 crore to bring the famed NHS Hospitals of England, apart from other leading English educational institutions and universities into the country over the next few years.
Under the agreement signed in the presence of Modi and Cameron, the first hospital, King’s College Hospital, England will come up in New Chandigarh at an investment of 100 million pounds or Rs 1,000 crore, a statement from Indo-UK Healthcare said. However, it did not say when the first hospital will become functional.
Meanwhile, the value of investment in joint UK-India research from the UK Research Councils, the Indian Government and third parties received a 72-million-pound boost during Modi’s ongoing visit here.
A series of funded projects for UK-India research programmes were announced on Friday as part of the Newton-Bhabha Fund. The Indian Council for Medical Research and the Medical Research Council will fund collaborative research projects that will study substance misuse and its associated consequences as part of a combined investment of 2.5 million pounds.
Significantly, just ahead of the Paris climate summit, India and Britain agreed on a comprehensive package of collaboration on energy and climate change which includes commercial deals worth 3.2 billion pounds.
The package encompasses 3.2 billion pounds of commercial agreements, joint research programmes and initiatives to share technical, scientific, and financial and policy expertise.