For the second year in a row, there will be no foreign guests at India's Republic Day celebrations on January 26 due to the global Covid crisis.
Reports said that India had invited the leaders of the five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – to be chief guests at the celebrations, though no formal announcement was made in this regard by any of the countries.
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The rapid spread of Omicron variant of Covid-19 globally is the main reason why no foreign chief guest will be part of the Republic Day celebrations.
Last year, India went ahead with truncated Republic Day events without a foreign dignitary after the visit of UK PM Boris Johnson was called off at the last minute due to Covid spread in Britain.
Prior to 2021, the last time the celebrations didn’t have a chief guest was in 1966, when Indira Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister on January 24 after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri on January 11.