Boris Johnson vows to visit Gujarat again, drive a Jaguar Land Rover

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Johnson was also “happy” about his visit to the Gujarat Biotechnology University (GBU) which has come up in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh at Gandhinagar. “He is very keen on collaboration on new technology, vaccines,” said Cook, the latter being a reference to the AstraZeneca/Oxford University collaboration with the Serum Institute of India (SII) for manufacturing vaccines in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The British Prime Minister also hailed the “people to people ties” between the UK and India and said he wanted to take it further. Currently, there are 99,000 Indian students in the UK, Cook added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets his UK counterpart Boris Johnson in New Delhi on Friday. (Express Photo: Praveen Khanna)

In New Delhi, Johnson and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to discuss Afghanistan, Ukraine, climate issues as well as clean energy among other topics.

On the first day of his two-day visit to India, Johnson met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, inaugurated a JCB plant in Halol and visited the Akshardham temple and Sabarmati Ashram on Thursday.

Johnson flew the Chinook helicopter to the JCB plant from Gandhinagar, instead of the Russian-made MI-17 used by the IAF. “We were very happy with the American Chinook helicopter,” Cook said.