Event reports
The programme, which took place both in Chandigarh and Delhi, aimed at enhancing the dialogue for a closer cooperation between Germany and India in the fields of SME develop-ment and vocational training with policy makers, representatives from industry, business and associations as well as from civil society and media. The programme started in Delhi with a meeting with Anurag Singh Thakur, Member of the Indian Parliament, Spokesperson of the BJP in the Lok Sabha and National President of the Youth Wing of the BJP, on the possibilities of implementing vocational training measures in exchange between German and Indian federal states.
The programme continued in the Union Territory Chandigarh, a city in the centre of the northern Indian industrial belt, which is the capital of both Punjab and Haryana. There, the delegation met the Honourable Minister for Industries and Commerce, Technical Education and Industrial Training and Parliamentary Affairs of the State of Punjab, Madan Mohan Mittal, as well as the Honourable Minister for Finance and Planning, Institutional Finance and Pro-gramme Implementation of Punjab, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, among others. Furthermore, there was a round table discussion with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in which in addition to numerous industry and association representatives, the Member of Parliament for Chandigarh, Kirron Kher also participated. Furthermore, the delegation met the newly elected Mayor of Chandigarh, Arun Sood. The programme was concluded with a tour of the production facilities of CLAAS, a German manufacturer of agricultural machinery.
In Delhi, the delegation had meetings with the German Ambassador to India, Dr. Martin Ney, as well as with Bhupender Yadav, General Secretary of the BJP and Member of the Indian Parliament, and with Nalin Kohli, National Spokesperson for the BJP. The results of the three-day programme were evaluated at a joint round table discussion organized by CII, in which the designated Indian Ambassador to Germany, Amb. Gurjit Singh, also participated. Both the Indian and German side have mutually agreed that the already excellent relations between the two countries have great potential to develop further cooperation in the key areas of SME development and vocational training, foreign and security policy, as well as environmental and energy policy. In the wake of the agreements concluded during the third Indo-German governmental consultations in October 2015 it now applies to the federal, provincial and municipal levels to fill them with concrete projects and to implement them.