India's time zone is either 5:30 or 4:30 ahead of England, dependant on the time of year. If, in England, it is between the months of November and March, then the UK's time zone is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), or as is now becoming increasingly dominant over GMT, UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Coordinated Universal Time is standardised and is linked with the international atomic clock and takes into account leap seconds, and is thus becoming the universal standard for time zones. So between the months of November and March, India will be 5:30 ahead of the UK. This means that if it is 20:00, then it will be 01:30 in India. This, however, is changed when the UK enters BST (otherwise known as British Summer Time). BST is a period lasting from the last weekend of March to the last weekend of October where the UK's official time zone is GMT +1 or UTC +1. This change to the time zone in the UK is done to make the evenings lighter for longer, and thus increasing the income for the tourism industry as pubs and other entertainment sectors can take advantage of the extended evening light. During the period of the year that BST is effective, India's time relationship with the UK is +4:30 meaning that if it is 20:00 in the UK, it will be 00:30 in India. It is important to check using the internet for the exact date when BST comes into effect as this could be crucial when finding the difference between the two time zones.
