Now Imran Khan's son goes into politics

While Imran Khan has been in Calcutta attending the India-Pakistan match, his elder son, Sulaiman Isa Khan, has been dipping his toe into politics. But the guidance is coming not from his father but from his mother.

Jemima Khan, 42, is helping out her brother, Zac Goldsmith, 41, who is running for London Mayor as the Conservative candidate.

His Labour opponent is Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting in south London, who believes the election "is in the bag".

"There is one young face on Zac Goldsmith's mayoral campaign who is strikingly familiar," the London Evening Standard newspaper pointed out.

"He is tall and handsome, very sweet but rather serious," it gushed.

"While most 18-year-olds from his affluent background would jet off on a round-the-world gap year on leaving school he has opted instead to pace the streets of London, knocking on doors and stuffing leaflets through letter boxes," reported the Standard.

It explained that Sulaiman "is cutting his political teeth on the Tory mayoral candidate's campaign to succeed Boris Johnson".

"Sulaiman has much in common with his beloved uncle," the Standard said. "They are both charming and polite, intelligent and studious, and want to use politics to make a difference. Just as Zac's environmentalism was inspired by his father's brother Teddy Goldsmith, founder of the Green Party, so Sulaiman looks up to his own MP uncle. Sulaiman has become a leading light of the Tory mayoral campaign's youth wing."

Meanwhile, I have received a personal letter from Prime Minister David Cameron telling me he is backing Zac: "On 5th May I urge you to give Zac Goldsmith your support."

The letter, addressed individually to Indian origin voters - Gujaratis have been separately targeted - says: "I was pleased to join Zac Goldsmith in welcoming Prime Minister Modi to the UK last year, at Wembley Stadium."

A section headed, "The British Indian community makes London great," reads, "The British Indian community makes an extraordinary contribution to London and to Britain. Closer ties between the UK and India have been a priority for me... I am backing India's claim for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and I will continue to work for what I believe could be a very special relationship between one of the world's oldest democracies and its largest."

Cameron tells me: "Your community has a key role in strengthening that relationship, and I will be backing you every step of the way."

India centre

More on Alice Prochaska, principal of Somerville College, Oxford, who tells me she will be flying to India to deliver a lecture on the inspirational life of Cornelia Sorabji at the Supreme Court on April 1.

Cornelia Sorabji (November 15, 1866-July 6, 1954), who was a pupil at Somerville, she adds, "was the first woman to take a law degree at Oxford and the first woman to practise law in India".

At a dinner last week, I was lucky enough to be seated next to Alice, who revealed: "At Somerville, we have a portrait of Cornelia Sorabji."

Somerville, which at different periods also produced Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, has become a hub of India-related study at Oxford. While Alice's ultimate dream is to set up an India centre at the university if she can raise £15m, Somerville set up the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development in 2013.

This is already bringing very bright, Indian postgraduate scholars "to study on courses that will train them in the academic and leadership skills they need to bring about change at home in India".

While in India, Alice's delegation will promote "the new Cornelia Sorabji scholarship programme", as well as "identify speakers and partners for the centre's forthcoming July conference on 'Nutrition, Power and the Environment'".

In Alice's delegation is a marine biologist, Alex Rogers, who will give a lecture, also on April 1 in Delhi, partly on what lies on the sea bed.

At Oxford they take their research seriously.

According to Alice, "Alex went down 10,000ft to the sea bed".

Saving soles

Something that Geoff Layer, vice-chancellor, Wolverhampton University, said last week at the official naming of the Lord Swraj Paul Building intrigued me.

The building, which houses Wolverhampton's new business school, has been in operation since November 2015 but the naming ceremony had to be delayed until last week because of the death of Swraj Paul's son, Angad.

Swraj has been chancellor since 1999 at Wolverhampton, where a sizeable percentage of the 23,000 students are of Indian origin. Having a business school will draw students direct from India.

In his speech Layer said the business school would maintain Wolverhampton's tradition of fostering close links with the manufacturing industry.

"But I thought manufacturing was being run down in Britain?" I asked Layer afterwards.

He explained that the while the cheap end of manufacturing was indeed disappearing, Wolverhampton cultivated links with "advanced, high end engineering".

Such as?

He pointed to a woman's high heels: "They do work on the heels of Prada shoes."

According to Lauren Weisberger's novel and the film, The Devil Wears Prada, but we now learn Wolverhampton University, which is strengthening its links with India, is also in the business of saving soles.

This England

For some reason people who come from Calcutta, more so than folk from Delhi or Mumbai, miss England when they return home.

The weather is still too chilly to be truly spring like but 200 years after William Wordsworth published his famous poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, it is possible to spot "dancing daffodils" even in the smallest patches of ground.

I think it is a pity that the Indian rich, who can afford to buy homes with gardens, prefer by and large to go for swanky apartments where they feel they don't have to be bothered with having to cut the grass. I always loved the smell of fresh mown grass at school for it heralded the arrival of the cricket season. But that was in the days before something called "Twenty20".

Rising rich

A relatively new name among rich Indians in the UK is Cyrus Vandrevala, who is in "private equity", dabbles with his wife, Priya, in Mumbai's real estate through his company, Intrepid Capital Partners, and has been valued at £2 billion.

Vandrevala, who has been featured in both Tatler and Country Life, arrived in London with his wife and two sons from the US.

When Prince Charles celebrated his 65 birthday with a black tie dinner at Buckingham Palace, Vandrevala was accorded a great honour - he was allowed to pay for the bash.

Tittle tattle

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be accompanied by lots of journalists, TV crews and snappers when they arrive in India on April 10 for their first trip to the country. Ahead of this trip, Prince William has raised eyebrows by flying off to Kenya leaving his wife Kate and their children behind. He is attending the wedding of a girl called Jecca Craig, who was once apparently his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, the Taj Mahal awaits the arrival of Kate and William on April 16.