In­dia's Prime Min­is­ter Dr Man­mo­han Singh has con­grat­u­lat­ed T&T new Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her suc­cess in Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion. In a re­lease from the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day, Singh stat­ed: "It gives me great plea­sure to ex­tend greet­ings and fe­lic­i­ta­tions on your suc­cess in lead­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ners. "The man­date you have re­ceived is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the great trust re­posed in your lead­er­ship by the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go." Singh added: "In­dia and Trinidad and To­ba­go have tra­di­tion­al­ly en­joyed warm, friend­ly and cor­dial re­la­tions. "I am con­fi­dent that un­der your wise stew­ard­ship, re­la­tions be­tween our two coun­tries and peo­ples will fur­ther deep­en in the years ahead.

"I look for­ward to work­ing with you in tak­ing our bi­lat­er­al ties for­ward in a com­pre­hen­sive man­ner." BIG­WU im­pressed with her style The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to T&T first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Pres­i­dent of the union Vin­cent Cabr­era, in a news re­lease, said the BIG­WU was im­pressed with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's style of lead­er­ship and her "abil­i­ty to unite var­i­ous forces in a com­mon cause." He said BIG­WU was look­ing for­ward to the leg­isla­tive agen­da of the new Gov­ern­ment. "We look for­ward to the com­plete ref­or­ma­tion of the ar­cha­ic labour laws in T&T," Cabr­era said. "The Man­ning regime has al­ways treat­ed labour as a pe­riph­er­al force," he added.

Salute from Ad­ven­tists

The Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church in Trinidad al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her win in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. Pres­i­dent of the church Kern To­bias said in a re­lease: "As the first woman to serve in such an im­por­tant po­si­tion, we salute you with joy and sat­is­fac­tion. "We be­lieve that you will con­tin­ue to unite the peo­ple of this blessed coun­try," he added.

CWU: Many lessons to be learnt

Al­so heap­ing prais­es on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's vic­to­ry in Mon­day's elec­tion was the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union (CWU). Sec­re­tary gen­er­al John Julien, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, said while the union ap­plaud­ed the par­ty on its his­toric vic­to­ry, it wished to re­mind it that there were many lessons to be learnt from "the out­right re­jec­tion of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion."

The state­ment added: "The em­phat­ic re­jec­tion of the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion sug­gests that there is man­i­fes­ta­tion of po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty where­by cit­i­zens are yearn­ing for the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the var­ied in­ter­ests of our so­ci­ety and the re­al­i­sa­tion of the strength of the di­ver­si­ty of our cul­tures." He con­grat­u­lat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar and said the union looks for­ward to the ad­vance­ment of the work­ers' agen­da.