MUMBAI: British Prime Minister David Cameron, the first English Premier to visit the west Indian city in 20 years, offered India’s financial capital help to realize its goal of becoming a world class finance and business hub.
Stating that India and Britain are natural partners, Cameron said British companies can help Mumbai realize its dream of becoming a world-class finance centre, apart from helping it develop modern transport infrastructure like the metro and a new airport.
“I am looking at more partnerships like the one between BP and Reliance in the areas like metro, the Navi Mumbai airport etc,” Cameron, accompanied by the largest-ever trade delegation (over 100) to the country, said.
Addressing a select gathering at the city’s museum, Cameron welcomed India Inc to invest in his country and also called for deeper business and cultural ties between the world’s oldest and the largest democracies.
Cameron also visited a mummy exhibition, brought to the city by Reliance Foundation, BP, the British Museum and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya.
Cameron, an avid cricket fan, after his luncheon meeting with corporate honchos, including Ratan Tata and Adi Godrej, found some time to indulge in cricket at the Cross Maidan.
He also called for greater cultural cooperation between the two nations as there are special cultural, historic and linguistic ties between the two countries which go back to many centuries.
“I managed some time for cricket, and I am here to make our relationship even stronger, wider, and deeper. India is place of a dozen of religions and hundreds of languages. There are over 1.5 million persons of Indian origin in Britain and they have become a fabric of our society.
“Today there is a new connection between the thousands of artists and art organizations of the two countries. Britain has some of the world’s greatest museums, and we can make a partnership with other museums in other parts of the world,” Cameron said.
The mummy display has been on since November 20 last and will run through the middle of next month (March 24), when the four mummies will return to London after a 50-nation tour.
Addressing the gathering, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said 35,000 students and 40,000 others have already visited the mummy exhibition and we expect over 1 lakh visitors before the mummies return to the British Museum headquarters next month.
This is the first collaboration between the British Museum and its city counterpart. The mummies on display include the coffin of Nesperennub, a priest who lived and died in Egypt nearly 3,000 years ago, and discovered at Luxor in the 1890s.
-PTI
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