the Indian Prime Minister and the diplomacy of the cow



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During an official visit to Rwanda, a small country in East Africa, on July 24, 2018, Narendra Modi was pleased to offer 200 local dairy cows to poor families, living south of the capital Kigali. A gesture that is part of a Rwandan government program launched in 2006 under the name "Girinka", aimed at fighting against malnutrition through easy access to milk.
            
                                

Cattle were transported to the control village of Rweru, about 40 kilometers from the capital, where modest farmers took possession, one per family.

The Rwandan program "Girinka" , whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he " helped transform people's lives through rural Rwanda ," was hailed for helping to reduce poverty by nearly 25 percent.

In the local language, Kinyarwanda, "Girinka" is a greeting that means " May you have many cows! "

"The cow is an object of prestige"

19659006] In Rwanda, where agriculture is an essential link in the economy, the role of the cow is paramount. The tradition in the countryside wants this animal to be offered to a family as a sign of respect or as a dowry at a wedding.

" In Rwanda, the cow is an object of prestige, a sign of respectability and the guarantee of social stability ", wrote the paleographer Antoine Torrens in 2004, in a long fascinating study after his immersion on the spot. " From Umutara to Butare via Ruhengeri, it is rare to be rich without having a cow ," he says.

A sign of opulence that is not to everyone. Since 2006, the government's initiative to help the most modest has been in the desire for wider access to this custom.

China and India look forward to tiny Rwanda
On the way to the summit of leaders BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in Johannesburg from 25 to 27 July 2018, the two Asian giants, China and India, successively stopped in Rwanda, as to accredit the idea that this Lilliputian and landlocked country of 11 million inhabitants has become unavoidable in Africa.

Its president Paul Kagame, also current president of the African Union, pleads for a continental free trade zone , a unique African market.

Major Loans
A tempting prospect for both Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who both sought to pamper the

On the one hand, Beijing grants Kigali a loan of 126 million dollars (107.7 million euros), including for the construction of two roads, on the other, New Delhi favors the extension of the zo No special economic Kigali and development of irrigation systems on agricultural land by opening lines of credit of $ 200 million (about 172 million).

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