Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit United Arab Emirates and Bahrain

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Prime Minister will visit west Asia in the next few days during which he is expected to visit the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

While in Bahrain he will be meeting top leadership and address the Indian community, during his visit to UAE, PM will be conferred The Zayed Medal, UAE’s highest civilian award.

In April this year, UAE announced that it will be giving PM Modi the highest civilian award. In a tweet in April, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi said that PM Modi has been conferred the award for boosting India UAE ties.

We have historical and comprehensive strategic ties with India, reinforced by the pivotal role of my dear friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave these relations a big boost. In appreciation of his efforts, the UAE President grants him the Zayed Medal.

— محمد بن زايد (@MohamedBinZayed) April 4, 2019

He tweeted, “We have historical and comprehensive strategic ties with India, reinforced by the pivotal role of my dear friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave these relations a big boost. In appreciation of his efforts, the UAE President grants him the Zayed Medal.”

The Indian mission has invited the Indian community in Bahrain for PM’s address to the diaspora, which has become a permanent fixture in his foreign visits. There are 350,000 Indian nationals living in the west Asian country. Bahrain launched ‘Little India in Bahrain’ project in November 2015 to acknowledge and mark the contribution of the Indian community to the history and progress of Bahrain.

The visit will be part of his visit to France where he has been invited as a special guest for the G7. The 45th G7 summit will take place from August 24–26, 2019, in Biarritz, France.

The MEA in a release said, “Prime Minister has received an invitation from the President of France Emmanuel Macron to attend the Outreach Session at the G-7 Summit in Biarritz as a Special Invitee.”

Adding, “The invitation is a reflection of the personal chemistry between the two leaders, a demonstration of our deepening strategic partnership and recognition of India as a major economic power. PM has accepted the invitation to attend the event which will also include a bilateral component”

India–United Arab Emirates relations

United Arab Emirates was one of the first OIC or Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries to welcome the Indian government’s decision to remove the special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The UAE envoy to India Dr Ahmad Al Banna while taking note of the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and removal of Article 370 called it internal matter of India said “We expect that the changes would improve social justice and security and confidence of the people in the local governance and will encourage further stability and peace”.

Recent years have seen India and UAE coming closers and an increase in a number of high-level visits between the 2 countries. Indian PM Modi first visited the country in August of 2015 which was followed by the visit of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2016. The following year the Crown Prince was the chief guest at India’s republic day parade and again in 2018 PM Modi visited the country and was the chief guest at the sixth World Government Summit in Dubai.

With Bahrain, the focus is on increasing bilateral ties, especially economics and trade. There are 23 branches of prominent Indian banks/companies registered in Bahrain and India’s total capital investment into Bahrain between January 2003 & March 2018 has been estimated at approximately US$ 1.69 billion.