Cambridge welcomes Indian High Commissioner

His Excellency Mr Nalin Surie took office at the High Commission in London last September and this was his first visit to Cambridge.

Mr. Surie has wide diplomatic experience as Secretary (West) in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

He has served as India’s ambassador to China and Poland and has also served in Indian Missions in Hong Kong, Brussels, Dar–es-Salaam, Thimpu and New York. While in New York, he was posted as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN.

He was greeted by Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy, Dr Jennifer Barnes, together with Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Sandra Dawson, chair of the Cambridge India Partnership, and Mr Michael O’Sullivan, Director of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Cambridge Overseas Trust.

Members of the Cambridge India Partnership, academics and staff with close connections to India, then took part in a round table discussion with the High Commissioner.

Recognising that great progress had been made on collaboration between Cambridge and India over the past three years and that there is now greater alignment between the two, he nonetheless urged Cambridge to do more.

At Judge Business School in the afternoon he met the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of India Business and Enterprise, Jaideep Prabhu, whose Chair was recently endowed by the Government of India, and members of the Centre for India and Global Business.

The Centre, a world-leading Global Knowledge Platform on Indian business and innovation, is pursuing a programme of research, bringing together business, academic and policy leaders and engaging with the innovators driving India’s role in the global knowledge economy.

Mr Surie’s visit concluded at the Centre of South Asian Studies where Director Sir Christopher Bayly, the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History and an eminent scholar of Indian history since 1700, introduced him to staff. The Centre today published online a collection of almost 300 films which offer a unique glimpse of life in India between 1911 and 1956. Click the links above right to watch an introductory video on Youtube and to view the archie itself.

Professor Dame Sandra Dawson said: “We are delighted that the High Commissioner was able to spend the day with us at Cambridge. His insights into the relationships past and future between the University and his country were challenging and inspiring. It is timely for the University to take stock and to consider how to develop new ways in which to work with Indian counterparts in academia, industry and government to develop and strengthen the country’s higher education provision, research capacity and impact.”