PM Modi shares UP’s enormous soft-power with gifts to world leaders

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared UP’s enormous soft power by gifting heritage products sourced from each district of the state to world leaders who had assembled at the G-7 summit in Germany.

For instance, the Prime Minister gifted a Gulabi Meenakari brooch and cufflink set to the US President, Joe Biden. Gulabi Meenakari is a GI tagged art-form of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.  A piece of pure, it is first moulded into a base form, and then, a chosen design is embossed in the metal. The embossed shapes are further filled with great dexterity with crushed Meena glass mixed with an intriguing natural Anardana (pomegranate seeds) glue. This is then fired to transform into a translucent coloured patch. What distinguishes it from other Meenakari is the layer of white Meena which acts as an opaque canvas for hand painted motifs. The paint is fired layer by layer for permanence. The motifs primarily use the colour pink (Gulabi), which lends its name to the craft. A matching brooch was also gifted for the First Lady.

For the French President, Emmanuel Macron, PM gifted Itr bottles in a zardozi box. The carrier box has been crafted in Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. The Zari Zardozi box has been hand embroidered on khadi silk & satin tissue in colours of the French National Flag. The motifs are traditional Indo-Persian, lotus flowers hand embroidered with metal wire in blue and a pendant used in Kashmiri carpets and motifs from Awadhi architecture.

The intricate  box further includes Attar Mitti. This is a unique attar produced in Kannauj, India where Petrichor- the fresh odour of first rain coming on earth is captured over sandalwood oil. It has an earthy wet natural aroma, produced by 5000-year-old traditional deg and bhapka method by distilling specially selected baked soil over Sandalwood oil.

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