New Delhi: Manmohan Singh will be given one of Japan’s top national awards for his “significant contribution” towards boosting bilateral ties, the Japanese embassy said yesterday. The former Indian prime minister said he was “truly honoured” for being chosen.
Manmohan Singh is the first Indian to be awarded the ‘Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers’, the embassy said in a statement. The former Indian prime minister, who was at the helm of the country for a decade till the 2014 elections, said he was “truly honoured” to be awarded the top Japanese honour.
In a statement, he said he feels “humbled by the love and affection showered upon me by the people and government of Japan.”
He said Japan’s rise as a modern, knowledge-based industrial power has been a source of inspiration for India.
“I first visited your beautiful country in 1971. It has been my dream to see our relationship grow and prosper, and this is an objective towards which I have worked, not only in my tenure as the prime minister of India, but across the larger part of my career in public service,” Manmohan
Singh said. IANS
