Indians in UAE rejoice Modi's swearing-in ceremony

Dubai: Wearing saffron clothes and holding national flags, the Indian diaspora here rejoiced as they witnessed the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his 58-member ministry live on television.

Modi took oath of office on Thursday after leading his Bharatiya Janata Party towards a resounding victory, crossing the 300 mark for 542 Lok Sabha seats in the recently-held general elections.

Around 100 community members, along with Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul, on Thursday saw the live telecast of the ceremony through a giant screen arranged by the Indian Consulate and India Club.

Since the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to UAE in August 2015, we have seen a real transformation in our bilateral ties. The close friendship that has blossomed over the last four years between our Prime Minister and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed is well-known,” Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE, said.

“We are seeing an unprecedented impact in areas such as trade and investment flows; food and energy security; manpower and skills; literature and culture; defense, space and security cooperation and, of course, our growing people to people connections, he added.

Vipul said that the ceremony is the culmination of the long electoral process which has been very successful.

“It highlights the strength of Indian democracy and therefore people have gathered to see the oath-taking ceremony,” he was quoted as saying by the Gulf News.

As the Indian Consul General, I am very excited both for our country and our bilateral relations with the UAE. In the last five years, we have had a lot of achievements in the India-UAE relations across a wide range of sectors and it will expand further,” he said.

Sidharth Balachandran, steel industrialist and former chairman of India Club, said, this will be the time for him (Modi) to show what they have learnt and continue the work on the initiatives that were launched.

Divyata Rajaram, a Dubai-based author, said she was happy about India’s relations with other countries due to Modi’s diplomatic efforts.

Internationally, the prestige of Indians has been at an all time high mainly due to Modiji’s diplomatic efforts,” she added.

Sunil Kumar, a librarian from a village in Himachal Pradesh, hoped that Modi will work for the poor in villages.

Shabbir Master from Gujarat, who owns a pharmaceutical company, said he was happy that most ministers in Modi’s first cabinet performed well in their previous tenure.

“I hope that he will bring more welfare schemes for the NRIs, especially for the rehabilitation of the workers who are returning home forever, he said.