{"id":330060,"date":"2021-01-06T04:23:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T04:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=330060"},"modified":"2021-01-06T04:52:12","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T04:52:12","slug":"boris-johnson-cancels-republic-day-visit-to-india-over-covid-19-situation-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/boris-johnson-cancels-republic-day-visit-to-india-over-covid-19-situation-in-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Johnson cancels Republic Day visit to India over COVID-19 situation in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-330063 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/boris.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"553\" height=\"397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2021\/01\/boris.jpg 553w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2021\/01\/boris-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/>British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his scheduled visit to India, citing the new coronavirus variant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cThe Prime Minister spoke to Prime Minister Modi this morning, to express his regret that he will be unable to visit India later this month as planned,\u201d according to a statement from his Downing Street office.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cIn light of the national lockdown announced last night, and the speed at which the new coronavirus variant is spreading, the Prime Minister said that it was important for him to remain in the UK so he can focus on the domestic response to the virus,\u201d the statement read.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cThe leaders underlined their shared commitment to the bilateral relationship, and to continuing to build on the close collaboration between our countries \u2013 including in response to the pandemic,\u201d it said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Johnson was to be the chief guest at this year&#8217;s Republic Day parade in New Delhi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The statement from the Indian side said that Prime Minister Modi &#8220;expressed his understanding of the exceptional situation in the UK, and conveyed his best wishes for the quick control of the pandemic spread. He looked forward to receiving Prime Minister Johnson in India at the earliest opportunity after normalisation of the situation\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cThe leaders reviewed ongoing cooperation between both countries, including in the area of making COVID-19 vaccines available for the world. They reiterated their shared belief in the potential of the India-UK partnership in the post-BREXIT, post-COVID context, and agreed to work towards a comprehensive roadmap for realising this potential,\u201d according to the official release.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPrime Minister Johnson reiterated his thanks for India&#8217;s invitation for him as the Chief Guest of the forthcoming Republic Day celebrations, but regretted his inability to attend in view of the changed COVID-19 context prevailing in the UK. He reiterated his keennees to visit India in the near future,\u201d it rea<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his scheduled visit to India, citing the new coronavirus variant. \u201cThe Prime Minister spoke to Prime Minister Modi this morning, to express his regret that he will be unable to visit India later this month as planned,\u201d according to a statement from his Downing Street office. \u201cIn light of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":330063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,53],"tags":[12253,574,316,1783],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330060"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330064,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330060\/revisions\/330064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/330063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}