India reopened its embassy in Afghanistan in Kabul after a painful gap of more than five years with external affairs minister Jaswant Singh saying that India is a great power and is on the march while asking the world to recognise this fact.
"India by conviction is a great power. But it is not flexing its muscle. We are simply telling the rest of the world that India is on the march and it will not be stopped. It is much better that the rest of the world recognise this fact," Singh told reporters after unfurling the national flag at the premises of the embassy with strains of the national anthem renting the air.
Singh, who is representing India at the handing over of power by Burhannuddin Rabbani to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai, termed the reopening of the embassy as an historic occasion and said, "I do it with a sense of fulfillment as a soldier of India. The embassy now restarts where it rightfully belonged."

The embassy was closed on September 26, 1996 barely 12 hours before the entry of Taliban into the capital of the war-torn country.
"I have the distinction of formally reopening the Indian mission in Kabul after a painful gap of time," he told reporters shortly before visiting the Indira Gandhi Hospital at Wazir Akbar Khan area.
Bureau Report