M A I N   N E W S

US, UK DIARY
Blunkett in love with India
 P.P.S. GILL

It came as quite a surprise to mediapersons accompanying Mr L.K. Advani, Deputy Prime Minister, on his two-nation tour that the British Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Mr David Blunkett, is blind. He does all his work with the help of audio-tapes or Braille. His permanent companion is his dog, which has complete understanding of the master. He is literally in love with India and even chose India for his honeymoon, way back in the late seventies.

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The UK is working with India to reduce poverty with over £100 million bilateral aid per year. India is the largest recipient of the UK development assistance.

Spending last year was Rs 1,400 crore (£ 180 million) and this figure is expected to rise to Rs 2,100 crore (£ 300 million) in 2004-05.

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India is a favoured destination of Britons. At least 300,000 British tourists visit India every year and more than 50,000 Indians visit the UK each year. Interestingly, up to 15 Bollywood films a year are now shot in the UK.

Despite the problem of illegal migration that now faces India and the UK, Indians are still welcome here. As many as 200,000 visas were issued in India in 2002, twice as many as in any other country. Britain is expecting more than quarter of a million Indian customers in 2003.

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Totally relaxed, Mr Advani along with his family spent Saturday afternoon at Princeton in New Jersey, visiting his wife’s brother, Gulu Jagiyani. Sharing anecdotes from his meetings with various world leaders, Mr Advani was at his best, given his sense of humour and earthy wit, interweaving these with his well-chiselled views on issues that confront India.

He posed for photographs and answered questions on his visit and personal life as well. Though he has been a journalist, the present assignment leaves very little time for him to write and he does not plan to pen down his rich experiences in public life. “I would have been a journalist if not in politics.”

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One important factor that was immediately noticed at all the civic receptions given in the honour of Mr Advani in Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York was his praise for the Indian Muslims. He reminded the American Indians that after Indonesia, the largest concentration of Muslims was in India. Of the 500-odd Al-Qaida activists, who have been arrested, there was not a single Muslim from India, which showed that ‘jehadis’ were from elsewhere. His praise for the Muslims is expected to go down well with the Muslims back home.

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At these receptions, Mr Advani dressed up in his usual ‘dhoti-kurta’ and regaled the audience with snippets that at times indirectly were a satire on the organisers themselves. Despite a conglomeration of political parties, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had successfully led the NDA coalition and completed five years. Between 1988 and 1998, India saw seven Prime Ministers came and go. “But thereafter, there has been one Prime Minister, who will continue to lead even after the next general elections to the Lok Sabha.”

This time it was an ‘actual’ meeting between Mr Advani and the US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney. He disclosed that in January 2002, he had a meeting with Mr Cheney via video-screen, which was ‘virtual’ meeting as September 11 and December 13 attacks on the two democracies had just happened.

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Mr Advani says that Indians settled in the USA had virtually no problems and were doing well. In the USA there are nearly 2 million Indians settled mostly on the West Coast (California), around Chicago, Washington, New York etc. Here are some interesting figures shared by Indians settled in the USA:

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The number of Indians in the USA is expected to go up from the present 2 million to 4 million by 2010. The value of assets of Indians settled here is estimated at $ 60 billion.

* There are 40,000-odd physicians and nearly 60 per cent hotels are owned by the Indians. The average annual earning of an Indian is around $ 60,000.