Ramayana casts its charm over leaders across globe in the opening ceremony of ASEAN

NewsBharati    13-Nov-2017
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Manila, November 13: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit opened with a splendid opening ceremony on Monday where leaders across the globe were present including leaders outside Asian continent US President Donald Trump, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ramayana, the great Indian epic cast its charm over the audience as the ballet company Rama Hari presented a musical version of Ramayana in the opening ceremony. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who started his Philippines visit on 12th November also attended the ceremony.

ASEAN 2017’s opening ceremony included excerpts from the musical Rama Hari, based on the Ramayana. Various parts of the Ramayana were beautifully highlighted in the Rama Hari. This shows the popularity of Ramayana among Asian countries and their shared heritage.

This year ASEAN is celebrating 50 years of robust cooperation. After the ceremony, world leaders posed for a photo which would create a magical moment as all the leaders were on the stage holding each other’s hand sending out the message of unity to the world. The summit is more significant this time as US President Donald Trump also participated though his country is not a part of South Asia. 
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Manila on Sunday. On the sidelines of ASEAN he met and interacted with various world leaders including US President Donald Trump, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. A gala dinner was hosted by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte ahead of the summit.
 
 
A large number of Indian Scientists works in International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) which has developed a better quality of rice seed and helped the global community in addressing food scarcity issues. PM Modi met the scientists where one among them gave an overview of IRRI South Asian Regional Center in Varanasi.
 
He interacted with Indian scientists, students, researchers working at IRRI. India’s ICAR and IRRI have been cooperating for four decades.