India summons British envoy over criticism

NEW DELHI: India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had summoned the United Kingdom’s high commissioner over what it called “unwarranted and tendentious discussion” of Indian agricultural reforms in the British parliament, foreign media reported. Three new agricultural laws introduced by India late last year have led to months of protests by farmers, angry at what they see as sops to large private buyers. A discussion among UK lawmakers on Monday has caused anger in New Delhi, which accuses the parliamentarians of interfering in India’s internal affairs. India’s foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told Alexander Ellis the debate “represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country,” according to a ministry statement.