India is on everybody's map now

With India's clout growing globally, France has said it wants to enhance its cooperation in several areas with New Delhi and promote more people-to-people contacts.

"India is on everybody's map now because of its development and growing internal presence and activities. For us, it is a natural desire to give more boost to our connections," French Ambassador Dominique Girard said.

Girard, who was addressing a group of French Joint Services Defence College, which is on a week-long study tour to India beginning April 21, said he was happy to note that two Indians were also part of this group.

A delegation of 115 military officers from France and 26 different foreign countries are currently visiting India to gauge this country's potential as a regional and global power.

French Rear Admiral Svend-Erik Estellon, who is heading the delegation, told reporters that they are here to study the regional security scenario and India's engagement with the rest of the world.

Estellon, who is the director of studies at the Paris-based College Interarmies de Defense, said this was for the first time the college had sent a delegation to India while in 2003 they had to cancel a scheduled visit owing to the volatile situation which existed due to tensions between India and Pakistan then.

The delegation, which has 82 trainees including a lone woman officer from South Africa, will interact with the Integrated Defence Staff, the Rajasthan Government and the Indian Navy to deepen the knowledge of those officers on India, in the fields of military, civic and social organisation.

"We are going to visit Jaipur, Agra and Mumbai before returning home. Every year, we decide on a geopolitical study in consultation with our defence and foreign ministries. This year, the theme is India as a regional and world power," Estellon said.

Elaborating on the purpose of their visit, Colonel B R Maurice said their study would comprise of three aspects -- defence, economic and governance scenario.

He said the delegation will travel to Jaipur for discussions with Rajasthan Government officials on the governance aspect, to Mumbai to study the economic scenario and get a feel of the defence scenario in Delhi, where towards the end they will hold discussions with the Deputy Chief of Integrated Staff.