Prime Minister Narendra Modi Continues ‘Selfie Diplomacy’ in UAE Visit

Indians are used to seeing their Prime Minister’s face splashed across the front pages of newspapers.

Modi is here on a two-day official visit that will see talks focused on boosting cooperation in energy and trade. This, however, doesn’t apply to the rest of the world – as the front pages of newspapers in the United Arab Emirates demonstrated this morning. He said that PM is also looking forwards to meeting with Indian Diaspora in the country. ADIA has United States dollars 800 billion sovereign funds and India is expected to woo it to make investments in the country in the infrastructure sector.

The last dignitary to be received by the Crown Prince, who is also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, at the airport was King of Morocco in May this year.

During the talks at the “Emirates Palace” hotel where Modi is staying, the two sides emphasised on expanding engagement between the two countries, holding that there was a huge untapped opportunities to step up economic cooperation.

“Our shared values and strong bilateral ties provide an important basis on which the UAE and India can elevate their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership”, Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was quoted as saying by Khaleej Times.

He said that though there are 700 flights between India and the UAE but it took 34 years for an Indian prime minister to visit, adding: “I promise this will not happen again”.

Shortly before his plane left from India en route to UAE, Modi tweeted in Arabic: “Welcome UAE, I am very optimistic regarding this visit and I am confident that this visit will enhance relations between India and the UAE”. As soon as the trip began, photoshopped images, memes, carefully crafted humour and barbs on the PM started doing the rounds on the microblogging site Twitter which always manages to find much to say about everything. India is also the third largest source of tourists travelling to the UAE. “I hope everyone will come with the national flag and celebrate in the spirit of our brother-hood”, he said.

The UAE, a federation of seven emirates, is home to about 2.6 million Indian expatriates who comprise a third of the total population and outnumber the local Emirati population.

“It is my priority to kickstart those things”, Modi said while addressing the business leaders from the UAE here at the Masdar City.

In an interview published in Gulf News on Sunday, Modi acknowledged that “there is a mini-India in the UAE”. “The Gulf region is vital for India’s economic, energy and security interests”.