We won’t follow U.K. in re-engaging with the poll-bound State: envoy
Making it clear that Berlin’s stand remains unchanged, Germany’s Ambassador to India Micheal Steiner has said the country will not follow Britain in re-engaging with Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat or his administration when the State is in the midst of Assembly polls.
(Last week Britain, in a departure from its earlier stand, announced normalisation of ties with Gujarat. It was among the many governments, including the U.S., which boycotted the Gujarat government in the wake of the 2001 communal riots.)
“Our stand remains unchanged. There is a domestic election that will start in Gujarat next month and we don’t want to make any kind of statement on it. Britain had informed us before making their announcement. However, our stand is not affected by the U.K.’s decision,” Mr. Steiner said, on the sidelines of a reception-cum-cultural evening, held in honour of a visiting German business delegation, at the Ambassador’s residence here on Monday.
Hails reforms
Talking about the latest round of reforms unleashed by the Manmohan Singh government, Mr. Steiner said these initiatives changed the investment climate. “The negativity surrounding the investment climate in India has faded as decision-making has once again begun to move in the right direction.”
The decisions allowing foreign direct investment in retail and opening up the aviation sector helped India improve its image and atmosphere of investments, he said. “I am confident about India-Germany bilateral trade taking an upswing and reaching the 20-billion euro mark by the end of this fiscal. The high level 35-member business delegation led by First Mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz is in India to discuss opportunities in renewable energy, port development and environmental technologies. We hope that it would provide a big boost to the business sentiment between the two nations.”
Germany was c country that has holocaust in the past will not approve any more violence in any part of the world and that decision is natural and laudable.
Indeed it is strange that foreign countries wish or do not wish to'engage' with individual states of the Union of India! It is enough if they reciprocate Indias' engaagement with them.As a matter of fact Inidian States should not bother about being in the good books of foreign countries. Let the foreign affairs be handled by the Central Government
By tying up with the NUMBER ONE country in the world due to it's courage to move
towards 100% renewable energy systems, India is moving in the right direction. With
Germany's expertise we too can rise up to a Sunny Future with the Germans. We could
not only power India sufficiently with the GIGAWATTS of solar energy reaching our
country daily but also power our neighbors and the ET (Energy Technology) sector
using renewables will open up more jobs for our youngsters than both engineering
and IT combined!
It is time that our government told foreign governments that passing judgements on our State
governments and their leaders in public is tantamount to interfering in our internal affairs.
However much our Central government dislikes Mr.Modi, any personal criticism of our Chief
Ministers, these governments should be told, is not acceptable to us. By the way, is Gujarat
Mr.Modi's very own? Shouldn't we feel offended if foreign governments discriminate against
Gujarat simply because Mr.Modi is its Chief Minister?
Its funny that they maintain relations with Pakistan and other terrorist countries, sometimes statements like this makes me believe that its a crusader war going on and we can't just see it. Indians need to educate themselves about history and beliefs of every region of world if they have to survive in the increasingly hostile new world order.
This is the most unsolicited & ludicrous statement from an envoy.
Gujarat will be better off without US, EU or Germany as their double standard policies will always be a problem and cannot trust them to have a cordial relationship.
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