By NNN-PTI
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. PTI