COMMONWEALTH MEET

India, UK likely to sign a dozen treaties during CHOGM

The Britain-Russia tussle will give India diplomats a tough time during the meet

Dominic Asquith, British high commissioner to India | Reuters Dominic Asquith, British high commissioner to India | Reuters

British high commissioner to India Dominic Asquith said that his country had only one statement on the poisoning of the former Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury. 

“We can find no other explanation other than that it was Russia. The nature of the nerve agent was confirmed [by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons] as a Soviet era nerve agent. In our view, there are important questions that the Russians have to answer. All that Russians have done so far is to obstruct investigations,'' say the envoy, while addressing a press conference on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet (CHOGM) in London next week. 

While the high commissioner said he could not predict whether the topic would be brought up at the meet, the British stance on the topic was clearly stated. The UK is not likely to lose the opportunity on pushing its case, and Indian diplomacy will have to navigate itself through rather troubled waters, without jeopardising its time tested friendship with Russia on the one hand, and its position on use of chemical weapons and poisons on the other. 

Asquith chose to focus on the bilateral relationship, which he said was in “very good health''. He said he was puzzled with reports on a trade deficit and dwindling number of Indian students to the UK. Trade, he said, rose by 15 per cent in the last year, and the number of students was also encouraging, with 14,000 students doing masters programmes in the UK every year. 

The UK is keen to have a treaty that recognises each other's degrees, like the one India signed with French president Emmanuel Macron during his recent visit. India does not recognise the one-year masters programmes given by British universities, so these post graduates are ineligible for a doctoral programmes in India later. 

The high commissioner said that around a dozen treaties were expected to be signed in the bilateral between Narendra Modi and Theresa May in trade and technology. In fact, one of the aims of the CHOGM itself is to get trade between member nations up from the present 700 billion dollars to one trillion dollars. 

The UK is wooing India as it prepares for a post-Brexit period from next March. Asquith, noting how attractive the UK was to Indians despite reports to the contrary, said that the UK issued more work visas to India than to all the other nations put together—which means half the work visas it issues is to Indians. Here, at least, India still has an edge over China. 

Asquith said that technology, trade and climate change would be on the table at the CHOGM. The threat to island nations from rising sea levels was a concern for several other member nations also.