The first impression of Finland in the minds of most Indians is of the country with best educational system in the world. While that is true, Finland is equally known globally for its expertise in clean tech, IT, start up environment and Northern Lights. Ms. Nina Vaskunlahti has recently been posted as Finland’s Ambassador to India. After graduating from the University of Turku in 1983 with a Masters Degree in Political Sciences, Ms. Vaskunlahti joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in 1984 and has held many important positions in various countries and in the European Union in Brussels. Prior to her posting in New Delhi, she served as Finnish Ambassador to Turkey for four years. In an interaction with Anand Mishra, Editor and Rajesh Mehta, Consulting Editor, Governance Today, Ms. Vaskunlahti shares her opinions about how to strengthen the relations between Finland and India.
EDITED EXCERPTS:
You have recently taken over as the new Finnish Ambassador to India. What are your expectations from the new assignment?
For me, a totally new, fascinating country, rather a subcontinent, to explore! But on a serious note, India has so much potential and Finland has so less visibility, both in terms of a country and what Finland and Finnish companies have to offer to India. So, ensuring more visibility for Finland is on the list, and that is also a challenge, because we are talking about a rather small country far up in the northern Europe! And there is a fair amount of competition going on: everybody wants to be noticed in India. Thus, that is something we have to figure out how to do.
As you must be aware, Finnish Prime Minister visited India last February, during Make in India initiative in Mumbai and had a very good discussion with Prime Minister Modi.
What is Finland’s New Action Plan towards India? Which are the major areas in which you see high scope of cooperation between India and Finland?
An action plan was published in 2013, but a lot of new things have happened in India since then. A new government has taken over, because of which new horizons have come up, and as such, we need to revisit our action plan to respond to these new horizons. More presence, more visibility is required. Having said that, there are areas in which Finnish competence is well known, examples being clean tech, new energy solutions, IT, education, that Finland can offer. Also what we need to realize is that two way interactions is required. For example, when we talk about education and training; it is not something that can be exported per se. When education experts or ministers visit Finland to study our system, they pick up elements most useful to them and try implementing them in India.
This story is from the November 2016 edition of Governance Today.
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This story is from the November 2016 edition of Governance Today.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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