On Wednesday evening I was out at the Computing Awards for Excellence ceremony. It was a great evening, with Sanjeev Bhaskar cracking jokes about the local tandoori in Battersea and nearly 1,200 people from the IT industry all gathered together for dinner and drinks.

I had a chat to the competitiveness minister, Stephen Timms MP, when I saw him sitting nearby. The minister was there to collect a special award granted by the editor of Computing, Bryan Glick, for his outstanding contribution to the UK IT industry.

Timms is in the right job. With a background before politics of working for companies such as Logica and Ovum, he is well suited to his present role and over the years he has held the IT or ecommerce portfolio – but in politics people change jobs all the time depending on what the party leader requires. It’s good to see him coming back to IT now. I reminded him about an interview we had done together in Mumbai back in 2004. That interview was at the Nasscom conference, the big event every February where the entire Indian technology industry all gets together to plan the year ahead.

Timms told me that he had really enjoyed seeing India that time and that he would love to return, especially now he has a focus on the IT industry again, so if the Nasscom conference planners are reading this you know who to invite for 2008.

And on this Indian theme today, happy Diwali to readers over there – enjoy the fireworks!