India’s Modi heads to Britain seeking investment
NEW DELHI: Narendra Modi will begin his first visit to Britain as Indian prime minister yesterday, seeking to boost investment in his booming country and win the backing of a large and influential diaspora community. Modi will have lunch with Queen Elizabethan honor usually only accorded to heads of state-and address parliament as Britain rolls out the red carpet for the leader of one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.
Around 60,000 British Indians are expected to attend a sell-out rally at Wembley Stadium billed as the biggest reception ever given to a foreign leader in Britain.
It is a remarkable turnaround for a politician who was effectively banned from visiting the former colonial power for nearly a decade over anti-Muslim violence in his home state of Gujarat in 2002. Britain was among the first Western countries to end its boycott of Modi, who has denied any wrongdoing over the violence that killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Prime Minister David Cameron will come under pressure to raise the subject of human rights in India after 40 lawmakers including opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn signed a motion for parliament to debate a host of issues. They range from alleged abuses by police in Indian-administered Kashmir to an Indian government ban on a BBC documentary about a 2012 gang rape in New Delhi that shocked the world.
‘Safe and stable bet’
But investment and trade will be the main focus of the visit. Cameron has visited India three times as prime minister, eager to boost trade with the rising Asian power, which reached $14 billion in 2014-15 according to Indian government figures.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said “nothing is off the table”. “Our focus is on how can we work together on challenges facing our countries from economic prosperity to security,” she told AFP.Modi will meet chief executives for a roundtable discussion in London, seeking investment to maintain a pace of economic growth that has hit around seven percent.
“My message to the business community is clear-come, make use of the opportunities India is offering and invest in India,” he said in a Facebook post. Analysts said the Indian premier, who swept to power last year on a promise to create jobs for a growing young population, would seek to sell India as a safe bet to investors in London-one of the world’s main financial centres. “The main thrust will be on leveraging investors,” said Sreeram Chaulia, Dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs. “India stands out as a rare beacon and the prime minister will play that up, focus on that really, and say, ‘look, India’s a safe and stable bet’.”
Mitigating against that message is an ongoing tax dispute between Indian authorities and Britain’s Vodafone that has become a symbol of the problems foreign firms face in doing business in Asia’s third-largest economy. That will likely feature on the YANGON: Fans designed with the image of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are seen at a souvenir shop of the National League for Democracy party (NLD) in Yangon yesterday. — AFP agenda, as will Indian plans to market rupee-denominated “masala bonds” in London. Defence deals are also on the cards as India undertakes a multi-billion-dollar upgrade of its ageing military hardware. Among the $15 billion worth of deals reportedly expected to be signed during Modi’s stay is an agreement for Britain’s BAE Systems to sell 20 more Hawk trainer aircraft to India.
India remains the world’s largest importer of defence equipment, but Modi has made clear his determination to boost the domestic industry, lifting a cap on foreign investment in defense production.
“India is now looking at purchases that involve technology transfer and manufacturing in India,” said Neelam Deo, a former Indian ambassador and now director of the Gateway House think-tank in Mumbai.
Modi will also inaugurate a London memorial to the low-caste leader of the struggle for Indian independence, Bhimrao Ambedkar, during his three-day visit.
It comes as the Hindu nationalist leader faces criticism at home over what critics see as rising intolerance after a spate of violent attacks on secular intellectuals and Muslims. — AFP GHAZNI, Afghanistan: Around 2,000 members of Afghanistan’s Hazara ethnic minority held an angry protest yesterday after militants killed seven members of their community at the weekend and dumped their partially beheaded bodies. The killing of the seven Hazara, including three women and two children, during fighting between rival Taleban factions and Islamic State sympathisers, highlighted the risk that worsening sectarianism could add a lethal twist to daily violence sweeping Afghanistan.
The mainly Shia Hazaras have long suffered illtreatment and persecution in Afghanistan, with thousands massacred by al Qaeda and Taliban militias in the 1990s.
This year, a series of kidnappings and murders of Hazara fuelled fears that the group was being deliberately targeted, and the latest killings in the southern province of Zabul triggered a furious wave of reaction on social media. In a sign of anger among the Hazara, the bodies of the dead were taken to Ghazni, a city in central Afghanistan with a large Hazara community, where crowds marched to the provincial governor’s compound in protest.
Bearing the coffins of the dead aloft and chanting slogans against the Taliban, Islamic State and the government in Kabul, the crowd demanded punishment for the killers.
“We ask the government to find the reason behind this serial killing of Hazaras in Afghanistan
Protests planned