Prime Minister Narendra Modi departed Accra on Thursday for Port of Spain, where he will seek to strengthen India’s historic ties with Trinidad and Tobago during the second leg of his five-nation tour.
“Leaving for Trinidad & Tobago. Later this evening, I look forward to attending a community programme in Port of Spain. Tomorrow, I will be addressing the Parliament of Trinidad & Tobago. Looking forward to deepening ties with a valued partner in the Caribbean, with whom we share very old cultural linkages,” PM Modi said in a post on X after concluding his two-day visit to Ghana.
Trinidad and Tobago is PM Modi’s second stop and will be followed by visits to Argentina, Brazil and Namibia. This is his first visit to Trinidad and Tobago as Prime Minister and the first bilateral Prime Ministerial visit to the country since 1999.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to hold talks with President Christine Carla Kangaloo and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who recently began a second term in office, and will address a joint session of Parliament on Friday. Kangaloo was Chief Guest at this year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, while Persad-Bissessar has visited India previously and received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman award.
Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that the visit would provide fresh momentum to the longstanding cultural and people-to-people ties between the two countries. “The visit comes at an opportune time, as this year, 2025, the country (Trinidad and Tobago) is commemorating 180 years of the arrival of Indian immigrants in T&T,” MEA Secretary (South) Neena Malhotra said at a briefing on Monday.
Trinidad and Tobago is home to an Indian diaspora that makes up about 40–45% of its 1.36 million people, descendants of immigrants who first arrived in 1845. The diaspora continues to maintain strong cultural and emotional ties with India.
The trip marks PM Modi’s second visit to the Caribbean in eight months. In November 2024, he travelled to Guyana for the India–CARICOM Summit, where he pledged support for Caribbean nations and met then Prime Minister Keith Rowley. PM Modi congratulated Rowley on Trinidad and Tobago’s adoption of India’s UPI digital payment platform and promised further cooperation in digital transformation.
India and Trinidad and Tobago are seeking to expand cooperation in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, renewable energy, digital public infrastructure, agriculture, disaster resilience and technology, as well as sports, academics and cultural exchanges.
Last year, the Prime Minister told Caribbean leaders that India stood firmly for giving voice to the concerns of the Global South, saying smaller nations were among the worst hit by global conflicts and crises.
PM Modi’s address to the joint session of Parliament is also symbolic of democratic ties between the two nations. “The Speaker’s chair in the Parliament has been a gift by India, which is again a symbolic reminder of the strong democratic and parliamentary traditions between our two countries,” Malhotra said.
This visit, she added, is also special for both the President and the Prime Minister of T&T, since they are of Indian origin and take pride in calling themselves “daughters of India.”
“The entire Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago is very enthusiastic about PM Modi’s upcoming visit and a large diaspora interaction event is being planned during the visit. During the visit, the PM will hold high-level discussions with both the President and Prime Minister, and the leaders are expected to cover the entire gamut of our bilateral relations, as well as regional and multilateral aspects,” Malhotra said.
After Trinidad and Tobago, the Prime Minister will travel to Argentina
IANS
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