Cii News – 5 September 2012

While progressive nations and organisations around the world continue to pressurise Israel by calling for a boycott of the state due to its occupation of Palestine, India is strengthening its ties.

Israel has planned to set up three centres of excellence in the wealthy Indian state of Gujarat to share and facilitate transfer of its farming technology.

The Indian authorities are to reciprocate by setting up a farming educational institute in collaboration with Israel offering post-graduation & PhD programmes with practical training and degree from Israeli universities.

The news was revealed at the inaugural function of National Convention on ‘The Next Frontier of Agri-Business & Technology’ and ‘Agri Asiatech 2012’.

The two-day event is set to mirror Israel in hosting an international level agricultural fair every three years.

Speaking at this year’s fair, Orna Sagi, Israel’s consul general to India told the Business Standard, “Ours is a grain exporter country today thanks to use of technology which can bring in such miraculous impact. To share our experience and facilitate transfer of technology, we are going to set three centers of excellence in the state of Gujarat each dedicated to vegetables, mangoes and post-harvest practices for dates & bananas respectively.”

Present as well was Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He played a key role as the provincial leader in stirring up emotions and sentiment that lead to the massacre of at least 2000 Muslims by Hindu mobs during the Gujarat riots of 2002.

According to the Business Standard Modi said, every year 15,000 to 20,000 Indian farmers including about 2,000 farmers from Gujarat visit Israel to get first-hand experience of advance farming technologies being adopted there and that to at their own cost.

The growing relationship by the Hindu dominated Indian state and the proclaimed Israeli Jewish state has intensified in recent history.

This week four of India’s top naval warships docked in in the Israeli port of Haifa on a four-day visit to “strengthen service-to-service linkages” and celebrate 20 years of diplomatic ties, the Economic Times reported.

The military relationship between the two entities has stretched back decades to World War One where Indian soldiers helped the allies in defeating the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

On this current naval operation Indian sailors will be visiting a memorial of Indian soldiers who died fighting the Ottomans. Stories of the Indian soldiers’ bravery have also been included in Haifa’s school curriculum.

India is Israel’s sixth-largest trading partner, and nearly 40,000 Israeli tourists visited India in 2010, according to a jpost.com report.