9th February 2015
New Delhi, India
Last month I wrote a blog about the exciting events the SIN India team have been involved in. The regional SIN IMEA conference in Mumbai was an excellent venue for all ‘SINners’ to get orientated with the various collaborations and projects SIN is kicking off with this year! Although its early days, the SIN events […]
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18th July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Some UK visitors to India, and British newspaper headlines, seem to consider that business here should be ours by “divine right”, as if it is Britain’s for the taking. We have, the argument goes, a special relationship with India – language, law, cricket, immigrants – which means that we must have an advantage on the commercial playing field. […]
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12th July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The strongest impression on most overseas visitors to Mumbai are the contrasts: between the lavish apartment buildings and the slums around the airport, between the exotic stores selling $2000 saris and the street food vendors outside offering 10 rupee snacks, between the packed trains arriving in the mainline stations and the air-conditioned luxury cars cruising the streets. […]
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23rd April 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
A number of the Tata Group’s top executives have said that you can’t understand their Group until you have visited Jamshedpur. I confess at first I had little idea where the place was, but after a warm invitation from Messrs Muthuraman and Nerurkar, Vice Chairman and Managing Director respectively of Tata Steel, I soon found out […]
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15th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Prime Minister’s visit to India in February set a number of firsts: the first by a British PM to Mumbai for 20 years, the first by a PM to Amritsar, and the first to India (or anywhere) to be joined by over 120 businesspeople. The size of the business group set us in Mumbai […]
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21st February 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Visits by the Prime Minister don’t come round too often to most FCO Posts, unless you happen to be in Brussels or Washington. Although I have met some “ex-PMs” in recent postings in Manila and Sydney, it’s more years than I care to remember when I was last involved in a visit by a current […]
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12th December 2012
New Delhi, India
Last week, UK Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in association with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) organised a series of seminars in India. The first seminar on the theme of UK regulatory procedures for pharmaceutical products was held in Mumbai on 3 December. The event brought together over 100 delegates from pharmaceutical and […]
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7th December 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Many people in London, and other parts of the UK, think they know a good deal about the Mayor of the capital, Boris Johnson: judging from the number of British tourists who greeted him in hotels or on the streets of Mumbai he must also be one of our most widely recognised politicians. Less well […]
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9th November 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
As the dramas of the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka unfurled last month, and the England Test series here begins next week, no-one living in India could fail to appreciate the importance of cricket to the nation. T20 Matches against big rival Pakistan, not to mention England and Australia, were watched by millions before […]
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15th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
No-one in India exemplifies ‘The Power of We’ more than Mahatma Gandhi, even over 60 years after his death. He sought to improve the conditions of the poorest and to lead one of the world’s first non-violent mass movements, first in South Africa and then in India. Hundreds of books have been written about his influence on […]
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