Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday concluded his two-day Germany visit where he attended the G7 summit while also holding bilateral meetings with several world leaders. During this time, besides representing India on the global stage as a special invitee, PM Modi also enhanced India's ties with other countries in the world. And one of the less talked about ways in which the PM has been able to strengthen India's geopolitical ties is through soft diplomacy.
Leaving Germany after a productive visit in which I attended the @G7 Summit, interacted with several world leaders and participated in a memorable community programme in Munich. We were able to discuss many issues aimed at furthering global well-being and prosperity. pic.twitter.com/jZAMOj4SOo
During the visit, Prime Minister Modi has given memorable gifts which represented the culture and artistry of India or sometimes were a symbol of the shared heritage or historical ties with the partner nations. Modi's well-thought-out gifts for his foreign counterparts have made headlines more than a few times in the past as well. Here are some of the gifts that were remarkable in his Germany visit.
South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa
Modi gifted Ramayana-themed Dokra Art, native to India's Chattisgarh to South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa. Dokra Art is made out of non–ferrous metal using the lost-wax casting technique. This sort of metal casting has been used in India for over 4,000 years and is still being used by certain tribes in the state of Chhattisgarh.
Ramaphosa was the chief guest at India's 70th republic day celebration in 2019. The year 2022 marks 25 years of strategic partnership between the two countries. The Indian-origin community of around 1 million constitutes about 3 per cent of South Africa's population.
India and South Africa have a robust economic and commercial partnership. The bilateral trade of over USD 17 billion was recorded in 2021-22. Investment from Indian companies in South Africa exceeds USD 10 billion. India is an important supplier of pharma products to South Africa.
Modi gifted Gulabi Meenakari brooch and cufflink set crafted in his own Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to the US President. The cufflinks were specially handcrafted for President Joe Biden while the matching brooch was a gift for US First Lady Jill. Gulabi Meenakari is a GI-tagged art form.
Sharing details of these different artworks, official sources noted that in Gulabi Meenakari, a piece of pure silver is moulded into a base form and the chosen design is embossed on the metal. The embossed shapes are then filled with great dexterity with crushed meena glass mixed with an intriguing natural anardana (pomegranate seeds) glue. This is then fired to transform into a translucent coloured patch.
What distinguishes it from other meenakari is the layer of white meena which acts as an opaque canvas for hand-painted motifs, they said, adding that they primarily use the colour pink (Gulabi), which lends its name to the craft.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted black pottery pieces from Nizamabad in Uttar Pradesh to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The pottery uses a special technique to bring out the shiny dark colour. The potters ensure that there is no scope for oxygen to enter the oven while the pottery is inside the oven. They also maintain a very high temperature throughout, which gives the articles its unique dark colour.
Pottery and porcelain is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period, while India has its own rich history of pottery arts, with several regions in the subcontinent specialising in finishing the baked clay and ceramic products in their own way.
PM Modi gifted a platinum hand-painted tea set from Bulandhshahr in Uttar Pradesh to UK PM Boris Johnson. The crockery is outlined with platinum metal paint in honour of the Queen's platinum jubilee being celebrated this year. Embossed outlines are laid on manually with Mehndi cone work. The gift is also significant as the enormous tea trade in India is one of the inheritances of its colonial past. The credit for creating India's vast tea empire goes to the British, who discovered tea in India and cultivated and consumed it in enormous quantities between the early 1800s and India's independence from Great Britain in 1947.
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