It will be pressed to do more on Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions and provide duty-free access to African produce.

As a country desperately wanting to get a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, though sans veto power, India will require all the skills to handle the pressure.

India is among the four newly emerging economies which have been invited to the summit to be hosted by the UK. The others are: China, Brazil and South Africa.

Political observers believe the pressure will be much greater on China, which is considered a bigger economy, posing greater trade and strategic challenges to the developed Western countries, especially, the USA.

However, China already has a UNSC permanent seat. .Economically also it is miles ahead of India. Multinational western businesses exposure in China is much greater than in India. To that extent, it will be easier for China to fend its position.

Kyoto Protocol was negotiated and signed in accordance with the principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was endorsed by the US but later repudiated by the present administration.

Under that agreement all member countries, including developing countries, were required to cut greenhouse emissions and report to the UN about the progress made.

It, however, required the developed countries such as the US to take a lead in limiting greenhouse emissions.

The developed world, with only 25 per cent of the world’s population, contributes 75 per cent of the accumulated greenhouse gas pollution, the US being the single largest polluter.

The US, which does not accepts the scientific theory about human beings being the major polluters, did not sign Kyoto Protocol.

The US President has said it is unfair to ask the US to sign the protocol when the world’s two foremost emerging economies have been exempted from the protocol.

India is surprised at this comparison. It’s per capita income is extremely low at about $1 a day and, on an average, a person in India consumes as much energy in a year as an American does in a fortnight.

In any case, developing countries such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico have reduced greenhouse gas emissions since 1997 through more efficient management of transport, energy and other environmental policies, while carbon dioxide emissions have increased in the USA during this period.

India is in favour of further reducing these emissions. It will, however, depend on the transfer of more efficient, newer environmental friendly technologies by the developed world, especially the US, to the developing countries.

These developed countries, directly or through multinational agencies, will also have to foot the bill for developing these new technologies.

As for as trade concessions to Africa are concerned, it will not be fair to expect India to open its markets to African goods when India itself remains largely an agricultural country.

Pitching one poor country against another, while the rich countries continue to heavily subsidise their farmers and industry cannot be called a just and fair trade.

In any case both on environment as well as trade, India will not negotiate within thin the framework of G8, when it is already committed to the multilaterally negotiated Kyoto Protocol and the Doha round.

India, China, Brazil and South Africa are not members of G8. No one should expect these countries to pledge at the summit any thing more than what they have already agreed to.

During his brief visit to Britain, the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, will have some bilateral meetings with the British Prime Minister and his senior colleagues, interact with the friends of India in the British Parliament and with the Indian community in Britain.

Dr. Singh will also receive an honorary degree from Oxford University.

For Britain, India is an important investor. Though India has only recently opened up, it is the largest investor in the UK among the emerging markets.