H.E. Mr Milan Hovorka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to India, presented his credentials to the Indian President (then H.E. Pranab Mukherjee) on September 28, 2015 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He is concurrently accredited to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives with residence in New Delhi. In September 2007 he was made Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade in the Government of the Czech Republic. He has a vast reservoir of experience, having served in World Trade Organization in the rank of Ambassador, including in the capacity of chair of the Council for Trade in Goods. He responded to questions from India Empire Magazine. In April 2017, at the India Empire Diplomatic Night, Ambassador Hovorka had received a special award for strengthening ties between the Central European region and India. The award had been given by Union Minister of Steel Chaudhary Birender Singh

On Indo-Czech relations…

Relations between India and Czechia are deep rooted. According to the Czech Indologist, Miloslav Krasa, “if not earlier, then surely as early as the 9th and 10th centuries A.D., there existed both land and maritime trade routes from Asian markets to the Czech lands, along which precious goods from the East, including rare Indian spices, reached this country”. Relations between the two countries continued to strengthen in coming centuries with frequent exchange of visits by academicians, artists, businessmen and political leaders. By making the knowledge of India available and accessible, the scholars in the Czech Republic are continuing the long tradition of the founders of the Czech Indology, dating back to the period before and particularly after the creation of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918. The comprehensive process of learning about India and of establishing contacts between Czechoslovakia and India was facilitated and accelerated by frequent visits of prominent Indian scholars, journalists, politicians and artists in Prague and other cities of Czechoslovakia.