President Murmu departs for India after 4-day state visit to Portugal, Slovakia

Vienna: President Droupadi Murmu departed for India on Friday after concluding her "historic" two-nation state visit to Portugal and Slovakia — the first such visit in nearly three decades.

An Indian President last visited Slovakia 29 years ago, while the visit to Portugal comes after a 27-year gap.

The president, who is accompanied by Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Nimuben Bambhaniya, and Members of Parliament-- Dhaval Patel and Sandhya Ray reached here by road from Bratislava to emplane for New Delhi after concluding her four-day state visits.

During her visit to the Slovak Republic in the second leg of the tour, the president met her Slovakian counterpart President Peter Pellegrini, Prime Minister Robert Fico, the Speaker of the Parliament among various dignitaries and held discussions on a range of issues of mutual cooperation.

The two countries discussed cooperation in emerging technologies sphere such as space and artificial intelligence, and explored further opportunities in sectors like cybersecurity.

"There is a strong and growing element of cooperation in the field of education and research. Health and wellness was discussed as one of the areas of cooperation. Tourism is growing between our countries. This is another area where the leaders had discussed further cooperation," Secretary West, External Affairs Ministry, Tanmaya Lal said.

"If we look at the economic relations between India and Slovak Republic, trade has been growing rapidly. Over the last five years or so, the trade has tripled, and now it is in the range of 1.3 billion euros. There is investment both ways," Lal said.

On Thursday, the president visited Tata Motors JLR plant producing Discovery and Defender line of vehicles in Nitra, 100 km from Bratislava. There, she met with Indian staff members and inquired about their well-being.

President Murmu was accompanied by President Pellegrini to the plant where both leaders went to the assembly line where the cars were being readied.

Murmu was also conferred an honorary doctorate by Constantine the Philosopher University, based in Nitra.

The two leaders planted the Linden tree, which is the national tree of the Slovak Republic, in a public park.

President Murmu described Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative "Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam” to Pellegrino, who said that his country too could consider undertaking such an initiative, Lal said.

She met around 250 members of the 6,000-strong Indian community here and urged them to be ambassadors of the country in the society where they are living.

During her visit to the Slovak Republic, two Memoranda of Understanding were also signed.

"One of the MOUs is between the Sushma Swaraj Foreign Service Institute of India and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia. The other one is regarding cooperation in the field of small and medium enterprises between the NSIDC and the Business Slovakia," Lal said.