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By Sally Watson, 1 November 2000 15:00

NEWS Day two: New Delhi Patricia Hewitt, minister for Scottish Enterprise? Not a title you'd expect - but it's a role the minister for ecommerce and small business has stepped into during her stay in India's capital, after the previous incumbent - a certain Henry McLeish - was promoted to head of the Scottish Parliament last week. McLeish was due to head up a delegation for Scottish Enterprise to New Delhi this week, but in light of these recent changes Hewitt has been forced to step into the breach. However, despite being called upon to sort out difficulties with the import of Scotch, the minister has still had time to promote her favourite talking point -ecommerce. During a meeting with the Indian minister for IT, Pramod Mahajan, Hewitt pledged to strengthen the relationship between the two countries in content as well as technology. She said: "We will create two-way trade missions in the content sectors so that we look for collaboration with their entertainment sector." According to Hewitt, Britain's strength in developing high-tech systems and new ideas for music, games and interactive television could create successful partnerships with innovative Indian entertainment companies. "We don't want to only focus on the IT and software engineering side," she said. India's recently introduced IT Bill bears a striking similarity to the Electronic Communications Act which came into force this year and Hewitt was clearly impressed with the Indian minister's vision. "He's got a wonderful view of the impact of IT and the internet on India," Hewitt claimed. "He describes it as the 'second freedom movement'," she added, "following the first freedom movement of political independence, IT and the internet will give India economic independence." Both governments also faced similar opposition to ecommerce regulation from their respective business communities - a problem Hewitt claims was ironed out when industry realised the acts were intended to enable business. "The new sectors in India are in this very happy position where there's no historical build up of licensing, permits, regulation and all the rest of the stuff that can make it very difficult," she said. "The Indian commerce minister is looking at how to simplify regulation - but it's a heroic task." Tomorrow the party heads south to the opening of the IT.com trade fair in Bangalore, India's own Silicon Valley, and the next stage of Hewitt's mission to encourage Indian business to invest into Britain. "You've heard of b2b and b2c," Hewitt said, "well this is b2i - Britain to India."