When 23-year-old Indian track and field athlete Subedar Neeraj Chopra took his final steps to throw the javelin in the air to hit his target at the Olympics 2021 in Tokyo, he ended India’s 100-year-long wait to win a gold medal.
As soon as the javelin left his hand, Chopra turned around instead of looking at the trajectory of the throw, raised his hands in the air, wearing a smile and a sigh of relief on his face that he had won gold. He knew.
Leaving every Indian in goosebumps, pride and a swarm of ecstatic emotions, Chopra took a victory bow with the Indian National Flag wrapped around him, sang the national anthem as it played for the first time in many many years at the Olympics, came back and folded the tricolour with the utmost respect and kept it in his bag.
The viral footage of Neeraj Chopra from winning gold to singing the national anthem with pride speaks volumes about where India has reached in the last 75 years of Independence from the British colonial rule.
His victory and journey are rather symbolic of the unfathomable amount of hard work, obstacles, unmatched resilience, and confidence of never looking back, that India as a country has nurtured and achieved since becoming an independent nation.
Noticeably, Chopra’s coach, Uwe Hohn who holds a record of a massive throw of 104.8m in Berlin, sat in his chair and blew a tight-fisted victory blow in the air instead of running around or taking a victory lap. He kept his calm. He knew his protege had done it and that this was a great victory, but just the beginning.
India seems to be in a similar position right now.
After losing almost half a million citizens to Covid-19, the country is slowly getting back on its feet irrespective of the fear, challenges and adversities faced by the country. Just like Chopra, despite all the unrest and possible warnings of the third wave, India is moving forward, learning from its mistakes, cheering the patience and resilience of its citizens for the past year and a half, knowing that the war against the virus is far from over.
This fight against Covid wouldn’t have been possible without the unconditional support of the British Asian Trust which launched a massive donation drive along with the supply of oxygen concentrators and equipment that India needed to fight the worst of times amid the pandemic. Doctors of Indian origin in the UK spent sleepless nights supporting their colleagues in India to learn and adapt to the perpetually changing variants of the virus via telemedicine. From Swaminarayan Temple to Gurudwaras and mosques across the UK, every single community organisation, centre and faith came forward to fight the battle against Covid-19. Hitan Mehta from British Asian Trust told us that he himself took his vaccine at a mosque. It cannot be emphasised enough how despite all odds, the entire community stood together in this fight, whether it was giving ration, free food, medicines, ambulance services or moral support.
The partnership between the University of Oxford and the Serum Institute of India to produce the Coronavirus vaccines will be remembered in the history of pandemics for centuries to come, especially as a stellar example of collaboration between two nations that share a bitter past due to the British colonial rule. The key was to move forward and move together.
Leading from the frontline, NHS Chief People Office Prerana Issar told the newsweekly, “The NHS’s relationship with the Indian diaspora spans more than 70 years, throughout which our colleagues and partners who come from or have links with India have contributed immeasurably. But the past year has brought a poignancy to this partnership that we could never have anticipated.”
In our special coverage for India’s 75th Independence Day, Rt Hon Priti Patel MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department told Asian Voice, “I was proud to see the UK being the first country to deliver life-saving medical equipment to India, a testament to the continued strength of the relationship between our two countries.”
“We have all witnessed the heart-breaking scenes in India over the past few months, and here in the UK, we stand side by side with India as a friend and partner in the fight against Covid-19, sending our solidarity and condolences to the Indian people at this difficult time, she added.
Speaking to Asian Voice in an exclusive interview, High Commissioner HE Gaitri Issar Kumar said, “Through a once in a generation integrated review, the UK has identified India for enhanced engagement in a number of key areas where both countries have common interests and convergences. Changing dynamics in the global order and the shift of the global centre of gravity and focus to Asia has brought the spotlight on the Indo-Pacific region where India is a net contributor of security.
“Given our many complementarities, we find ourselves to be natural partners in a range of human activities for the bilateral benefit and for the good of the world – from healthcare, science and technology to defence, security and trade, we have been part of the solutions to challenges faced by our respective peoples and the world.”
Dialogue Partner
ASEAN Foreign Ministers, in a virtual ceremony with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, welcomed the UK as an ASEAN “Dialogue Partner” early in August 2021. As a part of its foreign policy, the UK has joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This comes after the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This brings the UK closer in proximity to the Indo-pacific region where India is a Sectoral Dialogue Partner of the ASIAN economic bloc.
Raab said, “I am delighted that the UK has, today, formally become a Dialogue Partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc – the first new country in 25 years. This is a landmark moment in the UK’s tilt towards the Indo Pacific. Our closer ties with ASEAN will help create green jobs, reinforce our security cooperation, promote tech and science partnerships, and safeguard key pillars of international law like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
Furthering the dialogue on the UK-India partnership, Lord Karan Bilimoria writes in his column for the newsweekly, “2021 has been a watershed year for the UK, with Brexit over and the UK’s world-leading vaccination programme proceeding at pace, our economy is set to fully reopen this summer. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreeing to an enhanced trade partnership with a 10-year road map between the UK and India could not have come at a better time, our bilateral trade relationship will help lock in our promising economic trajectories.”
India 10th best country in the world for unicorn startups
The latest research conducted by Money.co.uk has revealed that India is the 10th best country in the world for unicorn start-ups. It stated, “With 34 businesses currently valued at over $1 billion, it has taken India's unicorn businesses an average of 8 years and 9 months to reach the valuation of $1 billion. The country that produces the start-ups which reach a $1 billion valuation fastest is China, with its 155 unicorn companies taking an average of just 5 years and 10 months to reach $1 billion. The country that produces the most unicorn businesses is the USA (378 businesses), followed by China (155), and India (34).”
A new future awaits
After India’s External Affairs Minister Jaishankar met Priti Patel and signed the Migration and Mobility Partnership, it was also reported that over 3000 individuals from India will be able to avail employment opportunities in the UK. The UK-India partnership did not halt during the pandemic, in fact, it was a blessing in disguise to go over impending matters, especially as the UK gears to widen its socio-political and economic horizons post Brexit. COP26 will bring Boris Johnson and Narendra Modi under one roof again later this year and the UK’s efforts to keep the warmth alive with India showed last week when India was moved to the amber list from the red list after much criticism.
At the heart of Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’, Modi and Johnson have unveiled an ambitious 10-year roadmap to boost cooperation in key areas, including defence, security and healthcare. At the centre of this ambition is an economic relationship, an enhanced trade partnership, which is aiming for a doubling of bilateral trade by 2030 and features a determination to negotiate a comprehensive and balanced free trade agreement that would involve an interim trade deal by mid-2022.
India stands at a pivotal position in matters of Afghanistan, especially when US and UK troops have withdrawn from the war-torn country. According to The Diplomat, “For the past several years, India has made Afghanistan its pet project for state-building, pouring in close to $1 billion – and possibly more – to fund schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure in war-torn areas. India has also invested heavily in building Afghan democratic institutions.” It’ll be imperative to observe the evolution of regional versus international partnerships as many countries come forward to rehabilitate Afghans.
With that said, one cannot forget the contribution of the diaspora across the world, especially the UK, where businessmen like Gopi Hinduja – one of the richest in the UK, according to Sunday Time Rich List continue to be an integral part of the UK-India ties.
According to data from popular job portal Indeed, India is posting the highest growth of 25 percentage points in terms of shares of clicks for jobs in the UK at 0.43 per cent in May 2021, compared to an average of 0.18 per cent in 2019.
Meanwhile, Indian companies continue to create jobs in the UK. According to Grant Thornton’s annual research into Indian business in the UK has found that there are now 850 Indian companies operating in the UK – rising by eight from its 2020 benchmark. As well as growing in number, they are also significantly boosting their economic contribution to the UK too.
In our special coverage for India’s 75th Independence Day, we bring you messages for the community from the UK’s cabinet ministers, MPs, and councillors. Lord Karan Bilimoria and Deputy Mayor of London for Business, Rajesh Agrawal write about the changing economy of the UK-India partnership amid the pandemic. There are exclusive interviews with High Commissioner HE Gaitri Issar Kumar, Executive Director British Asian Trust, Hitan Mehta, Lady Kishwar Desai about the upcoming museum in Delhi, actor Kabir Bedi speaks to us on the evolution of Indian cinema and Netflix tells us exclusively about their expanding slate of South Indian movies.
