INDIA:RETURNING TO India on St Patrick's Day was a little like a delayed homecoming, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar said yesterday.
“It’s good to be back,” Mr Varadkar said in New Delhi at the start of a six-day trip.
“I feel a strong bond and empathy with India which, once you get to know it, is like no other country,” added the son of a doctor from Bombay (Mumbai) and a nurse from Waterford.
The last time Ireland’s youngest Minister travelled to India was almost a decade ago after graduating in medicine from Trinity College Dublin. He trained for two months at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Bombay.
“It was a great experience, given the volume of patients I was exposed to on a daily basis during my internship,” Mr Varadkar said.
The huge caseload Indian doctors examine is one of the principal reasons they develop their widely acknowledged surgical and diagnostic skills, he said.
After a weekend of meetings centred on building commercial and tourism ties between India and Ireland, Mr Varadkar will meet his father’s eight brothers and sisters and their many children.
“It will be grand seeing them again after many years,” Mr Varadkar said. “For me it will be a reverse St Patrick’s Day homecoming.”
Other than Delhi and Bombay Mr Varadkar is also travelling to Calcutta where the Irish cricket team today play the Netherlands at Eden Gardens.
“Cricket is an important calling card in India and opens many doors,” Mr Varadkar said. The Irish public, he said, simply did not realise the extent to which their cricket team has raised their country’s profile by beating England in the tournament and performing far better than expected.
Saying he hoped Ireland could soon achieve full Test status, the Minister said he had an advantage over most Irish people in that he understood the complexities of a game his father insisted he play as a youngster.
Speaking on the economy, Mr Varadkar said that Ireland would look to India, as well as Brazil and China in its recovery strategy.
The Minister cited greater bilateral investment, direct access for Indian airlines to the US via Dublin’s newly built Terminal 2 and enhanced tourism as goals for the Government.
Negotiations in these areas were under way, with particular emphasis on information technology, pharmaceuticals, financial services and food and drink, said Mr Varadkar. Making Terminal 2 an Indian airliner hub would generate 300-500 jobs.
