Banashri Bose Harrison

Banashri’s interest in international economic relations led her to do a Master's degree in Economics, followed by a short course at Oxford University. After she became a career diplomat in 1981, the experience she gained while heading the Commercial Wing of the Indian Embassies in Budapest and Washington resulted in a sustained focus on promoting business and economic ties wherever she worked.So when.she was serving as the head of the Department dealing with Central Europe (which includes the Nordic countries) in the Ministry of External affairs, she focussed on understanding the nuts and bolts of India-Nordic economic cooperation and realized the huge potential that could be tapped for shared benefits. No surprise that when she was posted as Indian Ambassador to Sweden in August 2012, she reached out to Swedish businesses - big and small and soon came to appreciate that there were unlimited opportunities for cooperation with Sweden in almost every area that was vital for continued broad-based development of India - be it health, transport, circular economy, digitization or defence. She became convinced of the huge potential of partnership between Sweden, an innovation superpower and India with its billion billion bright minds and capacity for cost-effective improvisation. This inspired her to co-create  the public-private initiative ‘INDIA UNLIMITED’ in 2013 to strengthen the links between the businesses and peoples of the two countries. , Sweden India Business Council actively supported this platform.

After retiring from government service in October 2016, Banashri has continued to support what she deeply believes: ‘Sweden is a partner that India can trust and closer economic cooperation between them would bring gains to both sides and could also lead to global benefits through joint innovation’.