By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 28 Mar: Lord Karan Bilimoria paid a courtesy call on Governor Lt General Gurmit Singh (Retd) at the Raj Bhavan, here, today.
Lord Bilimoria described the meeting as a privilege and a pleasure. He recalled his association with former Governors Sudharshan Agarwal, BL Joshi, Margret Alva and Dr KK Paul. He said it was wonderful to meet the General after hearing so much about him.
At the outset, Lord Bilimoria presented the Governor with a copy of the book about his father, ‘Lieutenant General Bilimoria, His Life & Times’, published by the United Services Institute of India and written by Major General Ian Cardozo. The Governor immediately skimmed through the book and reminisced about his times with General Bilimoria. Lt Gen Singh recalled having been at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington when Lord Bilimoria’s father was the Commandant and, later, serving in Sri Lanka as part of the Central Army Command when Lt General Bilimoria was General Officer, Commanding in Chief.
The Governor explained his 5 missions for the State of Uttarakhand including reverse migration, farming and local produce, the empowerment of Women, Technology and AI and game-changers, which include spiritual tourism, ayurveda, yoga and honey production amongst many other gems the state has to offer.
Lord Bilimoria, as Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, discussed education in the state, a field about which the Governor is extremely passionate and engaged, being Chancellor of several Universities in Uttarakhand. He indicated he would be interested into entering into an MoU with Birminghan University. He was also very interested in Lord Bilimoria’s entrepreneurial story of building Cobra Beer from scratch into a household name in the UK and exported to over 40 countries globally.
“All in all, it was an extremely productive meeting and I look forward very much to not only meeting the Governor again but to following up and acting on the areas we discussed,” asserted Lord Bilimoria, who incidentally is a Doonite.
