Addressing the Indian diaspora at the ‘Sawasdee PM Modi’ event in Bangkok on Saturday, 2 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India and Thailand are related at a spiritual level.
"The relation is not between just the governments. The governments have not even forged them. They are rather forged by the history," he said.
The PM also highlighted the government's decision to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and said that it would be instrumental in weeding out terrorism and separatism.
He further said that rural India has declared itself 'open defecation free' on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary.
"The kitchens of Indian poors are now becoming smoke-free as weel," he said.
The prime minister is on a three-day visit to Thailand over renewed diplomatic efforts to convince India to support signing of a mega trade deal involving 16 Asia-Pacific nations to facilitate creation of the biggest free-trade region in the world.
He will attend 16th ASEAN-India Summit, the 14th East Asia Summit and the third summit meeting of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which is negotiating the trade deal.
Though the annual ASEAN and East Asia summits are key platforms to devise common strategy in dealing with geo-strategic and economic issues facing the region, the single-point focus this time has been on the long-negotiated RCEP trade deal.
(This is a developing story. More details awaited)
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