By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to visit India in January, Indian High Commissioner to Britain Kamlesh Sharma said Thursday.
Brown told a large gathering of Asians at the House of Commons Wednesday that he was keen to enter into agreements for health and education projects in India during an upcoming visit to India, but did not give the dates.
“The visit will be sometime in January,” Sharma told IANS.
The occasion is likely to be the fourth India-UK Summit – an annual event attended by the two prime ministers. The third in the series was held in October in London, attended by Manmohan Singh and Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair.
The two premiers will however have the opportunity to meet well in advance of Brown’s visit – at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, Uganda, Nov 23-25, where he said he looked forward to “resuming my friendship with Mr Singh”.
Speaking at a Diwali function organised by British members of parliament and the Hindu Forum UK, Brown said Britain’s relations with India are stronger than ever before, and he hoped to build upon them by entering into education and health projects, so that “every child will have the opportunity for education”.
Also on his agenda during his India visit is the eradication of diseases such tuberculosis, polio and malaria – three diseases that most affect the poor – by harnessing “scientific knowledge for all the people”.
“When I visit India, we will join together in these projects,” declared Brown.
Brown is a strong supporter of India’s bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council and reiterated his position Tuesday in his maiden foreign policy speech as prime minister.
This will be his second visit to India this year.
During a visit in January as Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, he spoke of the inspiration he drew from the life of Mahatma Gandhi while tackling both national and global security challenges, especially in deciding “what is right in the long term, even when there are easier short-term options on offer”.