Modi gifts Japanese PM handcrafted stone bowls, durries

Tokyo : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday gifted his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe two handcrafted stone bowls and durries.

Modi, who arrived here on Saturday for his annual bilateral summit with Abe, was received by the latter at the Yamanashi prefecture, close to the iconic Mount Fuji, earlier in the day.

According to sources, the bowls, made from rose quartz and yellow quartz stone sourced from Rajasthan, were crafted by master artisan Shabbirhusen Ibrahimbhai Shaikh of Khambhat region of Gujarat.

The uniqueness of this craft lies in the fact that the form of the product is scooped out from a block of stone and then shaped and refined using basic hand tools generally without any lathe machines.

Hand-woven by the master weavers of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, the durrie designs show the diversity of possibilities -- from a symmetrical repeating geometric tessellation in one, to stylistic floral motifs arranged around the classical medallion pattern in another.

The durries use two distinctive Indian colour palettes. While one uses indigo blues, reds and a sprinkling of turmeric yellows, the identifying colours that have marked Indian textiles for centuries, the other uses the muted earthy tones of the Indian landscape.

These stone bowls and durries were made under the supervision of India's premier design institute, the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

These apart, Modi also gifted a Jodhpuri wooden chest from Rajasthan with traditional work.

Both Prime Ministers visited a Japanese robotic and automation capabilities facility near here.

Abe also hosted a private dinner at his villa in Yamanashi for the visiting Indian leader.

This is Modi's third visit to Japan for the summit and his 12th meeting with Abe since 2014.

Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and in the defence and security sector, and leveraging Japanese capabilities for India's development initiatives will be the highlights of the agenda in the annual bilateral summit which will be held here on Monday.

India is the only country with which Japan holds annual bilateral summit while India has a similar arrangement with Russia too.