The UK risks losing its traditionally strong relationship with India if the number of students from the subcontinent entering British universities continues to fall, a senior diplomat has said.
In a stark warning about the UK’s waning “soft power”, Dinesh Patnaik, India’s deputy high commissioner in London, said that the halving of the number of Indians enrolling to study in the UK since 2010 could jeopardise political and economic ties between the two countries.
“Students and academics play a great role in cementing this relationship,” Mr Patnaik told an audience of Indian Anglo-Indian business and education leaders.Speaking at an awards dinner in Mayfair on 22 February, Mr Patnaik said that education had been the “most cementing factor” in the Anglo-Indian relationship for decades, but would be undermined if Indian student numbers in the UK continued to shrink.
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