Theresa May Visits Bengaluru

It is UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s third day in India today, and she is visiting India’s Silicon Valley. On her agenda is a meeting with Karnataka’s Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah.

CM Siddaramaiah and British Prime Minister Theresa May before the bilateral meeting today at Taj, Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/ejvVVDIWMY

— DIPR Karnataka (@KarnatakaVarthe) November 8, 2016

The CM is expected to ask May to make UK visas less expensive, especially because a large number of employees from tech companies need to visit the UK for work.

“What the IT industry needs is visas which enable their engineers to travel to the UK, work on projects for 3-12 months and come back. Just as London bankers and lawyers come to India to do cross-border work, our engineers travel to the UK," says Industries Minister RV Deshpande. Deshpande also said that the state government will talk about problems with student and tourist visas to the UK.

May is also visiting the campus of Dynamic Technologies Ld., one of the world’s largest suppliers of hydraulic pumps. Surprisingly she is not visiting leading IT companies like Wipro or Infosys.

She will visit the Sree Somehswara Temple  later in the day,  and will  also meet a delegation from small and medium enterprises.

Yesterday, May met Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi, where she said that the UK would offer a fast-track visa service for Indian businessmen. A GrantThornton report estimated that Indian business employs around 110,000 people in the UK.

Talks with PM @theresa_may focussed on multiple aspects of India-UK relations & how to add more strength to this partnership. @Number10gov pic.twitter.com/uCN7R77nQG

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 7, 2016

Also Read: UK PM Eases Visa Norms For Indian Bizmen

Commenting on her visit, Chairman of Bajaj Group, Rahul Bajaj said "it is important to us because after Brexit, which should come about in two years time, our trade with the UK, our investments in UK should not only remain the same but should become better."

Rostow Ravanan, CEO of software company, MindTree, said that the visa issue will backfire not he UK’s economy. “The issue is not a cost for us, but the implication for the UK firm doing business with us. These costs will hurt the UK society which will bear the cost," he said. "I think there is this impression that India is taking away UK jobs. This is highly incorrect because what we address is only the gap in terms of the dearth of knowledge or scale in that country," he added.

Also Read: 5 Things to Know About Theresa May