President Droupadi Murmu given City Key of Honour in Lisbon

Lisbon: “Namaskar! Madam President. Apka Lisbon me Swagat hai” is how Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas welcomed President Droupadi Murmu in a ceremony to hand over the City Key of Honour, making her honorary citizen of the City of Seven Hills.

The president, who is on a two-day state visit to Portugal, was given a Guard of Honour at the Camara Municipal de Lisboa, the historical building where proclamation of First Republic of Portugal had taken place from its Noble balcony in 1910.

She was taken to the Noble Salon where the ceremony to hand over the City Key of Honour took place with the room packed with Indians who had settled there.

Moedas said with the handing over of the City Key of Honour, President Murmu becomes an honorary citizen of Lisbon.

Starting her address with traditional Portuguese greeting ‘Bom Dia’, the president said the cultural connections between "India and Portugal reverberate across centuries and have left an indelible mark on our everyday lives".

She said “shared sense of responsibility in international affairs also makes us natural partners in regional and multilateral fora”.

The president said that "Portugal has been a valued partner of India in promoting our relations with the European Union as well as Lusophone countries, where Portuguese is an official language".

“In Portugal too, evidence of this strong cultural connect can be seen in the widespread popularity of Indian art, culture, cuisine, yoga and ayurveda,” she said.

Terming the Indian diaspora as the “bedrock of our relations”, she said they are making valuable contribution to the society and economy of Portugal.

Earlier in his speech honouring the president, the mayor recalled the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had cited the principle of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (world is one family) from ‘Upanishads’ during G20.

“This sentence tells it all, right, that we must refuse social division, us versus them. This is the sectarian way small minds see the world, by dividing society in different factions and groups.

”I started by recalling an old Indian verse for social harmony (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam). This is exactly what we’re doing, by sharing a history, by making innovation that have an impact on people’s lives, by working in social policies that put people first.

“This is the way to avoid sectarianism, which the Upanishad warned us about. This is the lesson India still gives us today,” he said.

The mayor said “we all depend on each other and we all learn from each other”.

“This is something that we feel very deeply here in Lisbon, and that’s why there is so much in common between us. First of all, identity, our shared history, India and Portugal, meant not only a revolution in science, in navigation, in geographical knowledge, it was a spiritual revolution, inspired by our ancient rich civilization and culture, inspired by your principles, your story and your traditions,” he said.

Terming India to be a “innovation powerhouse”, he said India is a country made of unicorn companies.

”That today, just for the Portuguese friends to know, there are more than 110 unicorn companies in India. It’s most and all the European Union together,” he said.

He said India is a nation of companies, of startups, with more than 130,000 startups working together every day in innovation.

“But Lisbon is also a city of innovation. We won the prize of the European Capital of Innovation in 2023 with a project called the Unicorn Factory, a hub for innovation for startups, for scalers,” he said.

“And since we have launched it, our unicorn factory, we have attracted more than 14 unicorns to Lisbon, more than 74 tech companies and created more than 16,000 jobs,” he said.

"I talked first about innovation, but innovation doesn’t make any sense if it doesn’t benefit people’s lives, if it doesn’t benefit the common good. And today I’m proud to have in this room entrepreneurs who make just this. They work for the common good. They show how strong businesses impact people’s lives across different sectors,” he said, citing notable Indian businessmen who had set up shops there.

The Indian community in Portugal numbers approximately 1,25,000, including over 35,000 Indian nationals and 90,000 persons of Indian origin with a large number of them having roots in Gujarat and Goa. Portugal has a population of around 10 million.

The community, spread across Lisbon, Algarve and Porto, has become an integral part of Portugal’s social and economic landscape.