Visiting minister urges Indian Community to be good envoys

The visiting Indian State Minister for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur, has called on the Indian community living in Rwanda to be good ambassadors of their country.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Members of the Indian community in Rwanda during a past event. They have been urged to act as good ambassadors in Rwanda. The New Times / File.

The visiting Indian State Minister for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur, has called on the Indian community living in Rwanda to be good ambassadors of their country.She made the call yesterday while meeting a delegation of the Indian Association of Rwanda (INAR) in Kigali.INAR provides a common identity to the Indian community through the promotion of unity, friendship and goodwill based on mutual understanding and cooperation."I appreciate your efforts to form an umbrella organisation, but I want you to be good ambassadors in this beautiful country,” she noted.She told The New Times in an interview that her visit is geared towards cementing the bilateral friendly ties between India and Rwanda."We want to deepen our bilateral cooperation and promote trade exchanges that will benefit the people of both nations,” she noted.The minister told the community to continue taking the affable relationship between Rwanda and India to greater heights.INAR Chairman, Dinesh Kalyan, welcomed Kaur who was accompanied by Ambassador Soumen Ray, the India High Commissioner to Rwanda, who is based in Kampala. "It’s our pleasure to have you all with us in this beautiful country. I don’t remember whether we have ever met any such delegation from the government of India in Rwanda, so indeed the happiness multiplies,” Kalyan pointed out.He expressed the association’s delight to see the bilateral relations between the two countries grow stronger, adding that it provided strength and courage to the Indian community. Later in the day, Kaur visited King Faisal Hospital to observe how the tele-medicine system works.