Scotland to learn from India for Commonwealth Games 2014
Glasgow – Scotland, the next hosting country of the Commonwealth games 2014 have shown the aim to emulate the experiences of Delhi Commonwealth Games Organizers to inaugurate the event with an equally impressive opening ceremony.
While team Scotland is participating in the Delhi Commonwealth games with its full enthusiasm, the country is also making hard efforts not to miss the opportunity for developing business, economic, energy, educational and tourism ties with its Indian counterparts.
Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond, who has been on the tour to India accompanied with his tourism, enterprises and economic development chief executives, while expressing his views about the current hosts of the games said that he was rather impressed
by the opening ceremony of the event.
He said that Scotland was already benefitting from traditional heritage and cultural pluralism of India, and the show at the inaugurating ceremony was rather the depiction of the marvelous cultural richness that India possesses and which was not something
new for Scotland.
Commenting upon the preparation for the games, the first minister from Scotland said that the athletes’ village, which they planned to have at Glasgow for the Commonwealth games 2014 did not have the training facility for the athletes, however, the Delhi
athletes’ village had that.
He said that Glasgow was planning to emulate the idea and was now planning to have a training facility center at Glasgow athletes’ village as well. He further said that the Scotland was planning to build the athletes’ village at Glasgow, which would be purely
a residential area.
However, he made it clear that since around seventy percent of the infrastructure was already built, his government did not have any intentions for delaying the execution of the projects.
Salmond, while sharing the reasons to visit India said that he was there primarily to support team Scotland that was rather playing well in the event. Moreover, he said that he also aimed at attending the ending ceremony of the Delhi Commonwealth games,
which was to be held on Thursday, October 14.
Moreover, the contingent consisting of economic development, tourism, energy and educational experts that had accompanied the first minister was aimed at developing close ties in the respective fields with Indian counterparts.
Acknowledging the splendid economic growth of India, Salmond said that it was not possible for his country to ignore India, which could prove to be an important economic and growth partner.
He further said that during the last 5 years, 11 Indian investment companies had invested $700 million in Scotland that had generated 3200 jobs for the Scottish people and had provided massive support to Scotland’s economy during the global economic down
turn. The minister also thanked 35,000 Indians, who had been there in Scotland for many years and emulated their rich experiences at Scottish soil.
The first minister told the media that besides encouraging his team on the field, talking about the renewable energy with their Indian counterparts was also an important point of their agenda.
Being an expanding economy, said the minister, India needed to invest heavily in the renewable energy sector, which was not only cheaper but also environment friendly. He said that Scotland was already providing technical support to a quarter of European
countries for installing renewable energy plants, and India too could benefit from the rich technical experience of Scotland for overcoming its energy crises.
A senior official of the Scotland contingent told the media personnel that sports had always helped the countries to strengthen the ties between each other, and in case of India and Scotland, the situation was no different.
While concluding his remarks the minister said that the only purpose behind the entire struggle to develop closer ties with India was aimed at fostering cooperation at all economic and cultural fronts. And, to develop a deep understanding partnership with
them before the upcoming Commonwealth games.
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