Prez invites Queen Elizabeth to India for CWG next year

President Pratibha Devisingh Patil today formally extended an invitation to Queen Elizabeth to visit India to witness the Commonwealth Games being held in New Delhi in October next year.

''India is hosting the Commonwealth Games in October 2010. Your Majesty, I take this opportunity to invite you to visit India on that occasion. A warm welcome awaits you there,'' she said at her speech at the banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle tonight. The President said this would also provide the Queen an opportunity to see how much India had changed since her last visit in 1997. The President added that India was proud to be a part of the Commonwealth which was celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. The institution was also playing an important role in shaping opinion on important regional and global issues, the President said. ''As members of the Commonwealth, India and the UK are working together to strengthen this unique institution. Your support to this institution is most valued,'' she said while wishing all success to the upcoming Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. Recalling the ties between India and the UK as built upon shared values and traditions, the President said they had numerous commonalities and the time had come to look at the present and realise the potential that the ''future holds for both our countries in the fullest manner possible.'' Raising a toast in her honour, President Patil wished personal good health and happiness to the Queen and her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and her family, in addition to continued well-being and prosperity of the people of the two countries and called for further deepening friendship between India and the UK.

President Patil said the real strength of the relationship between UK and India lay in the people to people contacts. She pointed out that millions of people of the two countries travel annually for tourism and business purposes. The bond of relationship was also evident in the fact that half a million people of India origin were citizens of UK, representing 2 per cent of the population of this country. Ms Patil said, ''We are delighted that Dr Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, currently based at Cambridge University in the UK, has been awarded with 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.'' Observing that UK was one of India's most important trade and investment partners, she said the Indo-UK bilateral trade was growing and now stood at 12 billion pounds. India was one of the largest investors in UK and these links were set to grow further, the President asserted. Seeking to further expand cooperation in education sector, the President referred to cooperation in the information and technology field and said education linkages between the two countries were also expanding rapidly. Ms Patil said she was highly impressed by the energy and vitality of the city, London, which was in the truest sense be described as a big, old but dynamic city. Equating London with Delhi, she said the two cities represent a microcosm of the world with people of different religions and races living together. Terming as significant the strategic partnership between the two countries reached in 2004, the President stressed that this symbolised the mutual trust and confidence that India and UK enjoyed in each other.

The President said she was happy that they were now engaged in further strengthening partnership in different areas like trde and investment, science and technology, education, counter-terrorism, culture, management of global economy and issues relating to climate change.

-- (UNI) -- 27DF8.xml

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