SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), Ra­jiv Diptee, has ex­tend­ed per­son­al thanks to the Gov­ern­ment and Peo­ple of In­dia for the role they played in the Vac­cine Maitri Ini­tia­tive, which helped this coun­try ben­e­fit from COVID-19 vac­cines de­vel­oped by In­dia.

In a ges­ture of ap­pre­ci­a­tion, Ra­jiv Diptee pre­sent­ed a paint­ing of the Stat­ue of Mo­han­das K Gand­hi to In­dia’s High Com­mis­sion­er to this coun­try, His Ex­cel­len­cy Arun Ku­mar Sahu.  The pre­sen­ta­tion and re­marks were made dur­ing the In­dia High Com­mis­sion’s cel­e­bra­tion of Odisha Day at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion (MG­ICC) at Mt Hope, on Thurs­day March 31st.  Mr Diptee un­der­scored that he was in at­ten­dance in his pri­vate ca­pac­i­ty, and not as the SATT pres­i­dent.

The paint­ing, which was done by Ch­agua­nas-based artist Ka­jal Mad­ho and en­ti­tled “Gand­hi, an Im­mor­tal Bea­con of Light”, had been com­mis­sioned by Dr Nadi­ra Ram­bo­cas and Tr­is­han­na Ali.

Diptee ob­served In­dia came to the as­sis­tance of many coun­tries at the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“In­dia pushed vac­cine eq­ui­ty high on the agen­da,” he point­ed out.  “We show grat­i­tude with a gen­er­ous at­ti­tude, hence the gift to His Ex­cel­len­cy.”

“In­dia has been a lead­ing light. The As­traZeneca Vac­cine de­vel­oped by Bharat Biotech, as well as the fur­ther ad­di­tions that came af­ter, were some of the first to ar­rive in T&T. To date the As­traZeneca Vac­cine has been one of the much bet­ter vac­cines in terms of vac­cine ac­cep­tance, in terms of da­ta that has been col­lect­ed post-vac­ci­na­tion,” Diptee said.

He added: “We ac­knowl­edge that In­dia has played an in­cred­i­ble role in the pan­dem­ic and that these vac­cines are an in­spi­ra­tion.”

Ra­jiv Diptee told those present at the cel­e­bra­tion that the statute of Gand­hi in South Trinidad acts as a bea­con of light in that com­mu­ni­ty.

Odisha Day, al­so known as Utkala Dibasa, is cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on 1st April in the In­di­an state of Odisha.  It is ob­served in mem­o­ry of the for­ma­tion of the state as a sep­a­rate state out of Bi­har and Oris­sa Province, with the ad­di­tion of Ko­ra­put and Gan­jam from the Madras Pres­i­den­cy on 1st April 1936. 

Af­ter los­ing its po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty com­plete­ly in 1568 fol­low­ing the de­feat and demise of the last King Mukun­da Dev, ef­forts re­sult­ed in the for­ma­tion of a po­lit­i­cal­ly sep­a­rate state un­der British rule on a lin­guis­tic ba­sis, on 1st April 1936.

The com­mem­o­ra­tive pro­gramme on Thurs­day evening fea­tured songs and dances for which the re­gion is fa­mous.