The Queen’s Baton Relay and the Last Day of India State Visit

The state visit by India’s President Pratibha Patil ended yesterday with the launch of the Commonwealth Games and a farewell from Queen Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth presided over the Queen’s Baton Relay for the XIX Commonwealth Games, which will be held in Delhi, India in 2010. The relay was held outside Buckingham Palace, 339 days before the start of the games.

A message from the Queen was placed inside the handcrafted Baton before she handed it over to President Patil. The Baton then passed from athlete to athlete until it was carried off by Dilip Tirkey and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa in a specially marked London taxi to start a 190,000 km journey to Delhi. It will be welcomed into that city’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium during the Games’ Opening Ceremony on October 3, 2010.

Queen Elizabeth then bid farewell to her guests on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. (President Patil and her group had stayed in Windsor Castle during their 3-day visit.) I thought the last photo below is quite interesting, in that we can have a glimpse of the protocol involved during state visits like this. Guests of the state don’t just drive away with a wave. There’s a red carpet involved, and the Queen of course is the perfect host, right down to the last minute of the guest’s visit.

images: Zuma Press; source: CWGDelhi2010