LONDON: The India-Britain partnership will remain strong irrespective of the direction the ongoing Brexit negotiations take, India's new High Commissioner to the UK, Ruchi Ghanshayam, has said.
In one of her first addresses on the bilateral partnership since taking charge at the Indian High Commission in London last week, Ghanshayam told a gathering organised by the Indian Professionals Forum (IPF) at Chatham House that it was important that familiarity does not lead to complacency in the relationship.
"The India-UK partnership is very old, it has stood the test of time and whatever happens to this Brexit process, whichever way it turns out, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that India and the UK will remain important partners," she said in her keynote address on the topic of 'Indo-UK Collaboration: Opportunities and Challenges'.
The UK is set to exit the European Union on March 29, 2019. Lawmakers will debate Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal in Parliament on December 11.
"The relationship is both special and deep. One of our greatest strengths is familiarity with one another. But the risk of familiarity is that we must guard against complacency. We must remain conscious of the need not to be complacent," the Indian envoy said.
The IPF, a non-profit think tank for Indian diaspora-related policy advocacy and a members' club launched last year, followed up the keynote address with a focus on the prospects of India-UK collaboration in the health care sector.
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"We see considerable potential in the area of health, with some parallels being drawn between the Ayushman Bharat programme and the UK's National Health Service (NHS).
We want to reflect on how India and the UK can collaborate on health care policy and provision," said IPF founder and president Mohan Kaul.
A range of panellists from the sector highlighted areas such as affordability, availability and accessibility as the focal points of the collaboration.