Britain's Minister for Business Engagement with India Gregory Barker and Virendra Sharma, Chair of the Indo-British All Party Parliamentary Group jointly presented the award to late Jawaharlal Darda's son, Vijay Jawaharlal Darda, MP and Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Lokmat, the most widely circulated Marathi language newspaper.

Also present on the occasion were Praful Patel, Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Rajeev Shukla, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Planning and Kerry McCarthy, Shadow foreign Minister with responsibility for India and several leading NRIs.

At the function yesterday, Vijay recalled that when India was all fired up by the "clarion call of Mahatma Gandhi, my father plunged into the freedom movement at the tender age of 17 after meeting the Father of the Nation."

In his address, Barker referred to the growing Indo-British relations and said "the relation between the two countries has never been so strong and dynamic."

He said India would continue to rise and it would be world's Number three economy by 2030.

"We have absolute confidence in India's long-term prospect," he noted.

Concurring with him, Praful Patel said the economics would drive relations between the two countries.

Apart from the Bengaluru-Mumbai Corridor development, "We have many more areas of cooperation," he said.

Observing that Indian students go to USA on a large scale, Patel said "I feel no reason why more and more Indian students should not come here for higher studies."