Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day hailed the deep­en­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and In­dia, as this coun­try wel­comed In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, to the Par­lia­ment for an of­fi­cial vis­it marked by the sign­ing of sev­er­al key Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU).

The agree­ments are aimed at strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two na­tions in ar­eas in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial de­vel­op­ment, tourism, dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion, re­new­able en­er­gy and com­mu­ni­ty-based projects.

Dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Par­lia­ment Ro­tun­da’s Gallery yes­ter­day, Dr Jais­hankar al­so hand­ed over 2,000 lap­tops for stu­dents across all sev­en ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts, ful­fill­ing a com­mit­ment made dur­ing the 2025 vis­it of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di.

Ad­dress­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised the on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two coun­tries and com­mend­ed Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers for his role in strength­en­ing diplo­mat­ic ties.

She al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to In­dia for its con­tin­ued sup­port to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Ex­cel­len­cy, your High Com­mis­sion­er, who is do­ing a tremen­dous job here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and to you and Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di, our eter­nal grat­i­tude out of love, friend­ship and fam­i­ly. We have fam­i­ly re­la­tions, and now we have na­tion-to-na­tion re­la­tion­ships,” she added.

In his re­marks, Dr Jais­hankar re­flect­ed on Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di’s vis­it to T&T in 2025 and un­der­scored In­dia’s com­mit­ment to de­liv­er­ing on promis­es made dur­ing that trip.

“A year ago, I had the priv­i­lege of ac­com­pa­ny­ing Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di on his very mem­o­rable vis­it. It’s al­most like yes­ter­day,” he said.

Dr Jais­hankar not­ed that the lap­top ini­tia­tive rep­re­sent­ed more than just a tech­no­log­i­cal do­na­tion.

“What we’re hand­ing over is not just an in­stru­ment. It is aware­ness, it is op­por­tu­ni­ty, it is in many ways con­nect­ing your­self with all that is hap­pen­ing around the world,” he said.

He added that as the world moves deep­er in­to the dig­i­tal era and to­ward ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, equip­ping young peo­ple with tech­nol­o­gy would bet­ter pre­pare them for the fu­ture.

Dr Jais­hankar al­so de­scribed the re­la­tion­ship be­tween In­dia and T&T as one root­ed in fam­i­ly and shared as­pi­ra­tion.

“At the end of the day, it is fam­i­ly,” he stat­ed.

Speak­ing dur­ing Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Min­is­ter Sobers out­lined the vis­it­ing min­is­ter’s itin­er­ary, which in­cludes a tour of Nel­son Is­land, where both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Dr Jais­hankar are ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er re­marks and un­veil a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque.

The In­di­an min­is­ter is al­so sched­uled to at­tend the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny for an agro-pro­cess­ing plant at NAMDE­V­CO in Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va.

The itin­er­ary fur­ther in­cludes the launch of a na­tion­al pros­thet­ics pro­gramme in Pe­nal, where the Prime Min­is­ter is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er the keynote ad­dress and un­veil an­oth­er com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque.

The vis­it will end with a lun­cheon or­gan­ised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Pe­nal and a gath­er­ing with mem­bers of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion.