BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be the chief guest at India's Republic Day cele- brations this year. Johnson has accepted India's "very generous" invite to be the Re- public Day chief guest which is "a great honour", said UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab following his talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday. Raab is on a four-day visit to India. This will be Johnson's first major bilateral visit since tak- ing office, and underlined his commitment to step up the UK's engagement with the In- do-Pacific region, said John- son's office.

"I am absolutely delighted to be visiting India next year at the start of an exciting year for Global Britain, and look forward to delivering the quan- tum leap in our bilateral rela- tionship that Prime Minister Modi and I have pledged to achieve," said Johnson in a statement. Jaishankar said Johnson's

"would be in a way s symbolic of a new era, and a e new phase of India-UK ties". Johnson invited Modi to join n- the G7 summit which will be hosted by the UK in 2021. "I'm o pleased that PM Boris John- son has invited PM Modi to join the UK-hosted G7 summit next year," said Raab. Addressing a joint press conference, Jaishankar said there was growing recognition and acceptance of the idea of Indo-Pacific. On the signifi- cance of Raab's visit, he said: "The UK Foreign Secretary

comes at a very important time because we are looking at a post-Covid world and also at a post-Brexit world from the perspective of the UK." Jaishankar and Raab dis- cussed trade, defence, educa- tion, environment, health and terrorism. day to discuss a '10-year road- map' for the UK-India relationship. The focus was on how to take bilateral ties to a higher level during the four-hour-long talks, said Jaishankar. Raab is due to meet Modi on Wednes-



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