10th June 2014 Mumbai, India
Kachchh – a tortoise-shaped land situated in the north of Gujarat is a paradise for geologists, environmentalists, and biodiversity enthusiasts! Last month, I visited two Kachchh based institutions located in Bhuj – KSKV Kachchh University and Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology (GUIDE) – in the dry, blazing summer heat! I met with Dr. M. G. […]
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12th May 2014 Mumbai, India
Recently, I visited the CSIR-Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) in Bhavnagar, Gujarat along with Dr. Philip Earis from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The CSMCRI used to be the erstwhile Central Salt Research Institute, which was inaugurated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954. It’s been nearly 60 years and the institute is […]
22nd January 2014 Mumbai, India
That Gujarat and vibrancy go hand in hand became evident to me when I recently visited the Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU), established in Gandhinagar, capital of Gujarat, by the Gujarat Energy Research & Management Institute (GERMI) as a private university. A 30-minute drive from the Ahmedabad airport, PDPU is situated between the cities of […]
23rd January 2013
The State of Gujarat, an hour’s flight north of Mumbai, can claim many important contributions to India. It was the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, another key leader of the independence movement and India’s first Home Minister, and Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the massive eponymous conglomerate, hails from Navsari in Gujarat. Gujarat […]
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20th April 2011
I made two visits recently to the State of Gujarat in Western India, both of which underline the enormous potential for UK companies in India, and the scale of developments here. At the end of March a team from our trade and investment operation in Mumbai travelled to Surat, the second largest city in Gujarat, […]
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21st December 2010
I am proud and a little relieved that my wife completed her trek in the footsteps of Gandhi. I am proud and a little relieved to write after my last blog that my wife completed her 350 kilometre trek in the footsteps of Gandhi’s famous Salt March of 1930 at the beginning of December. The […]
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10th December 2010
On Thursday 18 November forty people gathered pre-dawn at one of India’s most historic sites, the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, where Mahatma Gandhi lived for many years. The occasion was the beginning of an India-UK Friendship Walk, which my wife Jill has organised with massive support from members of the Association of British Scholars in […]
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