Close on the heels of French President Francois Hollande’s
visit India, it was the turn of David Cameroon, Prime Minister of Britain with
a team of English businessmen to India with the intention of improving business
and trade relations with India and also for improving bilateral relations and
to discuss happenings across the international arena.
In the case of French President’s visit, it was the first
visit with a purpose of bettering bilateral relations between the two nations,
besides to give a fresh momentum to the development of Civil-Nuclear relations
especially the controversial nuclear plant at Jaitapur at Ratnagiri,
Maharashtra.
It is interesting to note here that the very mentioning of ‘Civil-Nuclear
operation’ is something which our Prime Minister Sardar Man Mohan Singh holds
closer to heart. While former Pakistan Prseident (Retd.) General Pervez
Musharraf was in power in sleep and while awake used to harp on the subject of ‘core
issue’ of Kashmir. Musharraf had to step down making a way for a Democratic
govt with his dream of the ‘core issue’ without being fulfilled or materialized.
Our Prime Minister while asleep and awake is obsessed with the issue of ‘Civil
Nuclear Co-operation’ right from the days of George W Bush, former President of
US who cajoled him into signing the Civil-Nuclear Agreement. Much water flowed
down the Ganges since then but the ‘core issue of Civil-Nuclear Co-operation’
opens its eyes whenever a President or Prime Minister of a developed nation
pays a visit to India or whenever Dr.Singh embarking on his foreign jaunts, be
it to Russia, US, France or Britain and for that matter any developed countries.
Though several matters concerning both nations as well as
matters like the Afghanistan or the ongoing Civil war in Syria, which within a
span of two years, has claimed the about eighty thousand lives with no solution
in sight. The Arab Spring turning sour, the perennial issue of Israel-Palestine
conflict and cardinal issue of global down turn of European and US economics etal.
The burning problem of the installation Jaitapur Nuclear
plant has hit a road block with the civilians in the area especially the
fishermen community strongly protesting and with the local men already
determined to stop the work of the proposed plant at any cost since they are
very well aware of the dire consequences in case the nuclear power plant turns
to another Fukushima or Chernobyl in future as they know the tragedies awaiting
them and the gen-next for a prolonged period. The untiring efforts of both
Maharashtra govt and the Central govt to lure the poor citizens with huge
compensation running into lakhs of rupees for the peaceful installation of
nuclear power plant haven’t succeeded yet. The local community especially the
fishermen community who constitute majority of settlers in Ratnagiri and
adjacent areas have made it amply clear that they won’t fall for lakhs and
crores as compensation and what is most important as far as they are concerned
are their land nothing but their land.
It seems the Jaitapur nuclear plant is poised to have a
peaceful death with the local community standing firm. And if the govts of both
State and Centre are thinking in terms applying force to grab the peoples’ land
and try to evacuate them forcibly, entire Ratnagiri will turn red with the
blood of local inhabitants.
Writing about the visit French President and the core dream
of Jaitapur nuclear plant the visit off David Cameroon, Prime Minister of Britain
has been relegated to the back ground.
Mr.Cameroon and his entourage flew into India as already
mentioned- the improvement of business and trade-relations. It is his second
visit to India as Prime Minister of Britain. Besides improving business and
trade relations, bilateral relations and developments in the international
arena naturally became hot topics. India’s apprehensions after the withdrawal
of coalition forces from Afghanistan was brought to his attention by Prime
Minister ManMohan Singh. Cameroon gave an assurance to Dr.Singh that India need
not be concerned in the event of withdrawal of coalition forces by 2014. A
minority of coalition forces will be there to extend training to Afghan forces
and that both would provide security to the Indian nationals settling in Afghanistan
who are enagaged in the infrastructure development of the war-ravaged country.
Britain’s not so warm relations with Pakistan is looked upon
with satisfaction by the Indian rulers. Further more, Britain’s stand of not
interfering on the ‘core-issue’ of Kashmir, as the latter is an issue which
needs to be settled by both India and Pakistan holding talks ie. no third party
intervention is warranted on the controversial issue. Besides Cameroon demanded
Pakistan to rein in the terrorist elements who have become a pain in the neck
of India and he noted the internal security in Pakistan being endangered by the
militant elements resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians in that
country frequently.
Britain, as we are aware is not in good term with European
Union, due to the consistent pressures EU exert on Britain especially matters related
to economy. That must have prompted him to look towards Asian countries by
improving relations with Asian countries.
Immigration policies across Europe being a hot subject
recently with protectionist policies coming to the fore and as a consequence
many immigrants from various countries in developed European nations are forced
to return to their native countries. Indian diaspora too have been made to
suffer due to the immigration policies getting harsher.
In the course of his talks our Prime Minister reportedly
apprised of the concern of the Indian immigrants facing the strict migration
policies and in response Mr.Cameroon tried to mollify Dr.Singh’s concern by making
it clear that Indian immigrants especially students are always welcome to
Britain and if, upon completion of their studies are free to take up
assignments in his country. His assurances were music to the ears of Dr.Singh.
There were reports that about 24 percentage of shortage of Indian students and
that Cameroon had raised concerns over this problem.
The visit of two celebrities Francois Hollande and David
Cameroon have held out promises of bettering relations with France and England,
to put it mildly.
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