NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew a cultural and spiritual connection between Rome and Varanasi during his address in Italy, calling both “eternal cities”. Speaking at a joint press conference with Italian counterpart Georgia Meloni on stage on Wednesday, PM Modi noted that when two “civilisations” come together, decisions surpass any particluar agenda.“I express my heartfelt gratitude to Prime Minister Meloni for the grand welcome of me and my delegation. Rome is known in the world as the ‘Eternal City’. In India, my Lok Sabha constituency, Kashi, is also considered an ancient and eternal city. When two civilisations come together, the discussion is not limited only to an agenda,” he said. “It reflects the depth of history, the vision of the future, and the ease of friendship all together. In the last about three and a half years, I have had the opportunity to meet Prime Minister Meloni several times. This reflects the close cooperation and coordination between India and Italy. Under her leadership, our relations have gained new momentum, new direction, and new confidence,” he added.This comes a day after PM Modi drew attention to the word “sambandh”, highlighting that it carried the same meaning in several Nordic languages. This caught the attention of Iceland PM Kristrún Frostadóttir, who reacted to it calling it a “purely Icelandic word”.“We’ve seen through the free trade agreements that Prime Minister Modi addressed an increase in investment coming from Iceland into India. So there are so many things that we can do together, and I just have to address, I love that word ‘Sambandh’. This is such a purely Icelandic word, and people will be very devoted to this language, Prime Minister Modi, because this is what people need. They need more ‘sambandh’ today,” Iceland PM Kristrún Frostadóttir had said.PM Modi is on his last leg of the 5-nation tour. India and Italy agreed to elevate bilateral ties to a special strategic partnership and deepen cooperation in trade, investment and emerging technologies after talks between PM Modi and Italian counterpart Meloni.
