British prime minister David Cameron trumpeted a $1.1 billion defence deal with India today, a product of Britain's drive to court Indian business and tap new sources of economic growth.
In comments likely to please Delhi but which could upset Islamabad, Mr Cameron also said India's arch rival Pakistan should not "promote the export of terror", days after a huge leak of US documents raised questions about Pakistan's role in Afghanistan and its support for the Taliban.
On his first visit to India since taking office in May, Mr Cameron leads a delegation including six ministers and more than 30 senior executives from top UK firms to show Britain is serious about boosting economic exchanges with the Asian giant.
BAE Systems, Europe's biggest defence contractor, and Rolls-Royce signed about $1.1 billion worth deal with a state-run Indian firm to supply 57 Hawk trainer jets to India, one of the world's biggest defence markets.
Following in Washington's foosteps, London will start granting licences to its civil nuclear firms to export to India, opening up business prospects potentially worth billions of pounds, according to British government sources.
Finance minister George Osborne was in Mumbai to persuade Asia's third-largest economy to free up its financial services market and hasten the signing of a free trade deal between India and the European Union.
"I want this to be a relationship which drives economic growth upwards and drives our unemployment figures downwards," Cameron said in a speech to young Indian business leaders at the high-tech Infosys campus in Bangalore.
"This is a trade mission, yes, but I prefer to see it as my job's mission," he said.
India, a former British colony, belongs to the "BRIC" group of rapidly growing emerging economies along with China, Brazil and Russia, the likes of which Britain is hoping to tap especially in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Mr Cameron has often lamented that Britain trades more with Ireland than it does with all the BRICs combined and he has vowed to remedy that with vigorous pro-trade diplomacy.
Mr Cameron said today that Pakistan must not become a base for militants and "promote the export of terror" across the globe, saying their bilateral ties depended on that. The remarks are likely to cheer officials in Delhi, which has long accused its neighbour of backing strikes on Indian targets including the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
"We should be very, very clear with Pakistan that we want to see a strong, stable and democratic Pakistan," he told reporters.
"We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world," he added.
Mr Cameron leads the biggest trade delegation in modern times to India as a statement of intent amid talk of Britain wanting to forge a "special relationship" with India - a phrase more closely associated with Britain's ties with Washington.
Mr Cameron's Conservative-led government, and some Indian commentors, think its Labour predecessor did too little to maintain ties with India, the world's second most populous nation with 1.2 billion potential customers.
"In Britain, we're waking up to a new reality," he wrote in a column in today's edition of the Indian newspaper the Hindu.
"Economic power is shifting - particularly to Asia - so Britain has to work harder than ever before to earn its living in the world. I'm not ashamed to say that's one of the reasons why I'm here in India."
The Indian response to talk of the special relationship was guarded.
"We have seen reports and are aware of the intention of the government of UK to have a new special relationship with India," T.P. Sitaraman, the joint secretary at India's foreign ministry, told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday. "The discussions will naturally throw light on what those terms mean."
Reuters