India

The Sunday Times

When Sony Entertainment Television, a channel aimed at south Asians, held a party to mark Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, it chose an unlikely theme: James Bond, writes Mihir Bose.

Guests arrived at a London five-star hotel to find everything associated with Her Majesty’s most famous secret agent: cars, cocktails, casino tables and an actor pretending to be Blofeld, Bond’s deadly enemy — stroking a cat for good measure.

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Evening Standard

British aid to India was once an admirable, benevolent gesture. But to carry on giving aid is a colossal failure to understand how the country has changed.

Just consider the new India. The ninth largest economy in the world by GDP, it is growing at over seven per cent and is predicted to overtake the UK by 2022. There are more billionaires in India than in this country. Since India gained independence in 1947, Indians have squirrelled away more than £900 billion in Swiss bank accounts, more than the rest of the world combined. India also gives £3.5 billion of aid to Africa and is spending £2 billion to put Indians into space.

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BBC Radio 3 – Twenty Minutes

Eclectic arts magazine programme, exploring a range of fascinating people, places and events.

In this episode: ambitious parents, thwarted lovers, scheming marriage brokers and surprise revelations – theatre director, Jatinder Verma considers the place of arranged marriages in Bollywood cinema.

Click here to listen to the programme

Duration: 20 mins

Note: This programme will only be available until 08:57pm, Friday 27 May 2011

Mail on Sunday

India, said author Nirad Chaudhuri, can make even the lowliest commoner feel like royalty. You only have to stand in the street and do something a bit different and a crowd will gather, looking at you in awe. Before you know it, you have attracted a following.

Royal flash: Mihir (second left) prepares to step onto the Maharajas' Express.

But, even allowing for this very Indian trick, the way we were greeted as we arrived at the Kolkata station to board the Maharajas’ Express did make us feel special.

Nothing during the previous two nights in Kolkata – formerly known as Calcutta – had prepared us for Chitpur station, as far removed as possible from the mania of Howrah, the city’s historic rail station.

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The Independent

David Cameron arrives in India today hoping to do business with a country that is richer and more powerful than at any time since the British Raj. It’s as if history has turned full circle, argues Mihir Bose

David Cameron is eager to show that he can break with the past and chart new avenues – what with the coalition with the Liberal Democrats and talk of the “big society” reversing decades of centralised government power. But as he heads to India accompanied by a cricket squad of ministers and businessmen, he would do well to read up on a bit of history – and in particular, on the letter that Queen Elizabeth I gave to John Newbery, one of the first Englishmen to visit India.

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