The new Miss Trinidad & Tobago has been asked to greet global audiences at the Miss World 2017 pageant in China in October with Hindu salutations like “Sita Ram, Namaste”.

Chandini Chanka will be the girl of Indian origin in 40 years to represent the multi-ethnic society at the international beauty contest in Sanya, China. It will be indeed interesting to see someone representing Trinidad and Tobago in Indian style.

Chanka won the Miss World Trinidad and Tobago 2017 title last Sunday. She was crowned by the reigning queen Daniella Walcott.

Surujdeo Mangaroo, Public Relations Officer of the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC), the country’s premier socio-cultural organisation, made the plea at a reception held in Chanka’s honour at Divali Nagar, Chaguanas, earlier this week.

Mangaroo said that when Chanka won the annual Miss Divali Nagar Queen Contest in October 2015, she strode the walkaway “with dignity, poise, confidence and conviction that she was the winner all through, even before the results were announced”.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Indian diaspora hails principally from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. People from these two states were brought to the country to enhance the agricultural capacity of the then colony between 1845 and 1917.