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Modi’s visit to Maldives begins today


Published : 07 Jun 2019 09:23 PM | Updated : 01 Sep 2020 05:05 AM

Amidst the World Cup fever, India is all set to unleash cricket diplomacy to boost its relations with the Maldives as Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his first bilateral visit to the Indian Ocean island nation today.
India is considering a request from Maldivian President Mohd Ibrahim Solih, a cricket enthusiast who watched an IPL match in Bengaluru this year, to build a cricket stadium and the national team of the Maldives and train this team to bring them up to the requisite standards, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters here on Thursday. The stadium is expected to be built under the Line of Credit that India will give and the Indian government is working with the Indian cricket board (BCCI), he said Gokhale said India has already supplied cricket and training kits to Maldivian crickets. A team from the BCCI had visited the Maldives in May for training of Maldivian cricketers and finalizing coaching programmes for them, he added. The Maldives also sought India’s help in training coaches, umpires, score-keepers, match referees, Gokhale said and added that the government of India is ready to assist them. Given the popularity of cricket in South Asia, “we see this as an important people-to-people relationship building exercise in the same way that we did for Afghanistan, if you recall, a few years ago,” he said. The Maldives sought India’s assistance for coaching programmes in India for young Maldivian cricketers, including men and women, and New Delhi is ready to look at that possibility and assist the Maldives in that, the Foreign Secretary said.
Also, the Maldives would like India to do some training programmes in that country “which we are also willing to do, Gokhale said and expressed the hope that BCCI would take on additional responsibilities in this regard. Gokhale said the Indian Prime Minister’s choice of two neighboring countries, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, for his first foreign visit on returning to power underlines the continued emphasis New Delhi lays on the Neighborhood First policy.
He said Modi’s visit to the Maldives is going to be given a State visit which “is usually reserved only for the heads of States and therefore it is a mark of respect to India and to the Prime Minister that he is going to be given the treatment and welcome that is normal given to a head of State.”