Margaret Thatcher's India connection

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died in London today at the age of 87, was an admirer of ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On a visit to India, Mrs Thatcher had once said, "We both felt the loneliness of high office and it was good to be able to talk to someone who understood." In this picture, Mrs Thatcher meets Indira Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi in 1983 before the start of the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting).

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wears a garland and a tilak, vermillion on the forehead, at an award ceremony in 1983. She was in India to attend the meeting of CHOGM. Mrs Thatcher was credited with putting Britain back among the leading industrial nations of the world.

In this file picture, Mrs Thatcher, head bowed down, leaves the Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi in 1984. She was there to attend the funeral ceremony of assassinated Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mrs Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics, had struck up close rapport with Mrs Gandhi.

In this file picture, Mrs Thatcher is greeted by the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on her arrival in Delhi in 1985.

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Japanese Prime Minister Sosuke Uno are seen speaking to the then India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia in Paris in this 1989 picture. Two years later, when Mr Gandhi was blown up by a suicide bomber in Tamil Nadu, Mrs Thatcher had said she felt equally personally aggrieved.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is seen meeting the then Indian External Affair Minister Pranab Mukherjee at South Block in New Delhi in 1995. During a visit to India, Mrs Thatcher had hailed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's vision for India's economic liberalisation, which was "boldly initiated" by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.