Ram Nath Kovind presents a prize to Vivekananda Kendra in New Delhi. (PTI)Prime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have briefed President Ram Nath Kovind about the airstrikes by the Indian Air Force on terror camps in Pakistan, minutes before the two leaders headed for the Gandhi Peace Prize award ceremony.
Modi, who was at a meeting of the cabinet committee on security (CCS), reached Rashtrapati Bhavan almost an hour after his scheduled arrival at 9.53 am – the ceremony was due to start at 10 am. He immediately went into an unscheduled meeting with President Kovind.
“It was a one-on-one meeting. There was nobody else present. But it is safe to assume that the strikes would have featured in their discussion,” said a Rashtrapati Bhavan source.
Later, Modi spoke at the Gandhi Peace Prize award ceremony, and right at the start of his speech, apologised for having been delayed because he “got busy in some other work”.
The PM made no other reference to the matter that kept him busy, choosing to speak instead on how the Gandhi Peace Prize, presented together for four years, honoured people who kept alive the “Gandhian philosophies of cleanliness and service to the needy”.
President Kovind, in his address, spoke about how the Gandhian modes of struggle, and ideals of achieving human liberty by conciliation and appealing to the conscience of the opponent, have “influenced some of the greatest of our age”.
He presented the prize to the Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari for 2015, jointly to the Akshaya Patra Foundation and the Sulabh International for 2016, to the Kolkata-based Ekal Abhiyan Trust for 2017, and to WHO goodwill ambassador Yohei Sasakawa for 2018.
