Mr Cameron, meet a coming superpower...

I am, unsurprisingly, delighted to see my Government finally taking India seriously. Being partly of Indian extraction, and a semi-frequent visitor to the country, I've seen for myself the progress that is being made in Mumbai, in Bangalore and even in Delhi.

But if the United Kingdom is to be taken seriously, the relationship with India needs to be about more than just us selling things to them. It is about immigration, about cultural exchange, about India's place in the world as much as ours. So, here are a few suggestions for the Government;

1. Make it less difficult for Indians seeking to visit the country. Note that I use 'less difficult' rather than 'easier'. There is a fairly well-founded impression that, by various means, people with darker skins are given more hurdles to clear than their white counterparts. Consular buildings are more thinly-spread, there is a presumption that they will overstay that is not applied to visitors from Australia, Canada or New Zealand, and the non-refundable fee that accompanies any visa application is designed to put off as many people as possible.
2. Encourage our universities to create joint programmes with Indian partner universities. The exchange of ideas will foster a better long-term relationship, and offer opportunities to British students that they might not find elsewhere.
3. Encourage tourism to this country. Indians are beginning to travel and, with the number of flights between London and a number of Indian cities already high, it is only a matter of time before we can potentially attract significant inward traffic.
4. Start to recognise degrees from Indian universities as valid for Civil Service recruitment purposes. Current policy is to utterly disregard them, and I have seen some very bright individuals languishing at relative low levels as a result.

These aren't big ideas, they need not cost much. What they do is send a message that we are interested in India, not just because we think that they have money and might put some our way - most Indian leaders, in politics, in business, are much smarter than that - but because we have a link in terms of history.

But most important, if the future is that of the so-called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), then shouldn't we be taking the one with whom we have most in common seriously? And that isn't the Chinese, who have had so much attention lavished on them up until now...