Kovind completes one year as President of India

As Ram Nath Kovind completed his first year as President of India, the Rashtrapati Bhavan today described him as 'Everybody's President' who has met 34 persons on an average per day and visited a record 27 of the country's 29 states since taking charge.

He also gave assent to 30 bills of the Union government and 59 of state governments, besides promulgating 12 Ordinances in his first year of presidency.

72-year-old Kovind, who assumed office as the 14th President on July 25, 2017, has also hosted eight state visits by presidents and monarchs from across the world and visited ten countries while becoming the first Indian president to conduct three consecutive state visits to Africa, according to a series of infographics issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan today on his one-year of presidency.

He is the first president to have visited Djibouti, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Swaziland, Suriname and Cuba, it said. Kovind is also the first president to visit Ethipoia since 1972, Zambia since 1989, Greece since 207 and Mauritius since 2013.

The Rashtrapati Bhavan said Kovind's visit to 27 of the country's 29 states in his one year of presidency is "a record for any president" and he has done 53 domestic visits in 52 weeks, including the current trip to Chhattisgarh.

Kovind's home state Uttar Pradesh is his most visited state (nine times), followed by Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh (five times each), Gujarat (four times), Jammu and Kashmir and and Karnataka (three each).

His first visit outside Delhi was to Leh in August last year to honour the Ladakh scouts.

He visited six of eight states in Northeast -- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, which is also a record, one infographic said.

Making him 'Everybody's President', a total of 12,740 people met him at Rashtrapati Bhavan and during his visits to various states, another infographic said.

"On an average, President Kovind has met 34 persons per day, from soldiers to scientists, farmers to pharmacists," it added.

On May 10 this year, Kovind became the second Indian president to visit the Siachen glacier, it said.

He also appointed Eight Governors, one Lt Governor and 151 judges to High Courts.

According to the infographics, Kovind turned Rashtrapati Bhavan into 'Rashtra Ka Bhavan' with as many as 90,147 persons visiting it and the Mughal gardens in the past year.

Besides, a total of 41,955 persons visited Rashtrapati Bhavan museum.

Rashtrapati Bhavan is now open to visitors for four days a week -- Thursday to Sunday. "Plans being finalised for a new reception centre and an enhanced visitor experience," it said.

Rashtrapati Bhavan said Kovind is also active on social media and Instagram account has been started by him to connect with millenials and has got 1.39 lakh followers.

Kovind has 4.08 million Twitter followers -- up by 8,80,000 in one year and he has tweeted in 18 languages. On Facebook, he has got 5.02 million likes and has 67,050 subscribers on Youtube, while his Facebook page is the second most interactive among all apex bodies in India and is among the ten most engaged pages of heads of state/government.