UK to honour individuals promoting ties with India

MUMBAI: Britain today instituted awards in the name of Dadabhai Naoroji, a towering political leader and economist of pre-Independence era, to be given to individuals who promote partnership between India and the UK in domains like commerce, education, and culture.

The key European country also said there will be no limit on the number of Indian students coming to Britain.

"Today I am announcing the Dadabhai Naoroji awards which will be given to individuals annually and will be run by the British Foreign Office. We want to recognise exceptional individuals who do exceptional things to promote and celebrate the partnership between the two countries in domains like commerce, education, and culture," British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said.

He was talking to reporters on the margins of his interaction with students of St Xavier's College here.

Clegg met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi yesterday and discussed a wide range of issues.

Speaking about the meeting, Clegg said his discussions with Modi revolved around promoting bilateral business ties.

"With Prime Minister Modi I discussed commerce and economics, whether it is relating to individual British Indian investments, or WTO talks. We discussed how we can work to promote further investment and trade between our nations."

The British leader said there is a lot of potential for the two countries to collaborate further on education and added there will be no cap on the number of Indian students who will be allowed to study in his country.

Clegg said Modi expressed his commitment towards ensuring that economic growth will not happen at the cost of environment stability.

"We talked extensively about the environmental challenges which both countries face, particularly India as it embarks on its next phase of growth. There was a real personal passionate commitment from Prime Minister Modi towards India's sustainable growth," he said.

Asked about racially-motivated incidents against Indians in Britain, Clegg said people should be treated with mutual respect.

"Quite a lot of politics around the democratic world is increasingly based upon identity issues, language, race, religion, sexuality, colour and as a liberal my basic philosophy is that people should be treated with mutual respect and one should act with mutual understanding."