British PM spends first day at Infosys campus

When British Prime Minister David Cameron made a significant departure from traditional protocol last night by reaching this city ahead of his meeting with his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, his priority was clear — hardcore business. His engagement was at the campus of Infosys, India’s second largest information technology services company, hardselling the UK, which is passing through prolonged recession.

The meeting, attended by over 2,000 Infoscions and many Bangalore-based entrepreneurs — they included Wipro chairman Azim Premji, Biocon chairman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and MindTree co-founder Subroto Bagchi — saw Cameron urging Indian partnership to generate jobs. “The core purpose of my visit is to create opportunities for generating many more jobs in my country, as well as in India,” Cameron said in his 30-minute address on a cloudy afternoon. Saying the ecocomic issue was on top of his agenda, the PM said Britian had suffered its longest and deepest recession since the second world war and was now trying to get grips with “our highest-ever peacetime deficit”.

‘India’s global rise’
India matters to the world because it’s not only a rising power, but also a responsible global power. The time has come for India to take the seat it deserves in the United Nations Security Council,” he said.

Pioritising his agenda for discussion with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (whom he meets in new Delhi tomorrow), Cameron, who has brought with him the biggest ever delegation, including over 40 business leaders, said there were three major global challenges that Britain and India had a duty to meet together – economic, global security and climate change.

These are the challenges that should shape our relationship, he added.

Saying he wasn’t ashamed to say one reason why he was in India was to attract more foreign investment into Britain, Cameron said he would discuss all the three things with Manmohan Singh.