The Minister of Culture, Dr. Ghassan Salamé, and the Indian Ambassador, Mohamed Nour Rahman Sheikh, inaugurated the bust of the Indian philosopher and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore during a ceremony at the Sanayeh National Library. Present were Minister of Youth and Sports Nora Bayrakdarian, Minister of Foreign Affairs Youssef Raji, Minister of Industry Joe Issa Khoury, MP Faisal Sayegh, Chairman of the Gibran National Committee Fadi Rahme, committee members, and numerous figures from the cultural, literary, social, and media worlds.

Minister Salamé expressed his pleasure at participating in the inauguration of a statue of the Indian philosopher, based on a portrait by Gibran Khalil Gibran. This statue will be permanently installed in the Mary Haskell Garden of the Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum in Bcharre. This decision follows the Gibran Committee's decision to commission a statue for each person Gibran painted and to install it in the Haskell Garden.

Salami stressed that it was "of the utmost importance that the Indian government select an eminent sculptor from among its people to create this statue, which arrived in Lebanon a few days ago. It will remain for some time at the National Library so that visitors from Beirut and the surrounding area can admire it. It will then be transferred to its natural location in the Mary Haskell Garden of the Gibran Museum in Bcharre."

He thanked the Indian ambassador and the Gibran Committee for "the cooperation that made possible the creation of a statue of India's greatest poet."

For his part, the Indian ambassador highlighted "the cooperation between the Embassy and the Ministry of Culture in organizing this prestigious ceremony," adding that he had spoken during his participation in a symposium on Gibran in Bcharre. He spoke of Tagore and Gibran, their close relationship, and their numerous meetings in New York, where one can discern in some of Gibran's writings the harmony and coherence of their ideas and their shared vision on many subjects.

He emphasized that during his visit to the Gibran Museum, "he discovered portraits of Tagore drawn by Gibran. After discussion with the committee, it was decided to send the image to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, which chose the person responsible for sculpting the statue you see now." He added: "Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 after writing a collection of poems entitled 'Jitanjali' in 1910, which was translated into English in 1912."

For his part, Fadi Rahme, president of the National Gibran Committee, welcomed the Indian ambassador's initiative, hoping that "embassies whose citizens own paintings by Gibran will imitate them and erect statues. He praised the close relationship between Gibran and Tagore, two Oriental figures distinguished by their global reach."