‘Indian diaspora contributes 6% to United Kingdom’s economy’

Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha VADODARA: Around 1.8 million Indians, or 2-3 % of Indian diaspora, contribute six percent to United Kingdom’s (UK) economy, which is recognized as a huge contribution. This is what ambassador (retired), former high commissioner of India to the UK and chief information commissioner of India, Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha said on Wednesday. The Indian diplomat was in the city to deliver a lecture under ‘India@75: Videsh Niti Distinguished Lecture Series’ of Union external affairs ministry on ‘India – UK relations in the contemporary context: opportunities and challenges’. The lecture was organized by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Policy Research and International Studies and the Department of Political Science of MS University’s Faculty of Arts. Sinha highlighted the historical ties between India and UK dating back 400 years during the reign of Jehangir while also mentioning the increasing globalised world, G20 and partnership in various sectors especially technology and education in the India-UK relations. He said that although it can be said that India now is a system maker and not just a system taker since India overtook UK as fifth largest economy few months ago and said that India is party to a lot of bilateral and multilateral rules and has an active positions in the formation of the same. Sinha also spoke about how underwhelming in India-UK relations the economic relations are not true to the potential. “UK was not even in the top 15 trading partners of India, while India held 12th position in the list of UK’s trading partner,” he said, adding that position of India is significant when it comes to investment in the UK. “India was the second largest investor in the UK last year after the USA which generated 1.2 lakh jobs in the UK,” Sinha said. “UK has always been one of the most preferable education destinations so much that when there is a problem it becomes a bilateral relation,” he said, citing an example regarding the policy of post-study work visa, which was receded and the number of Indian students increased to 80,000 in 2018.