washington washington us president donald trump lit a traditional diwali lamp diya in the white house on tuesday calling indians a very very special people and exulting about usindia relationship ties he said can act as a bulwark for freedom prosperity and peacethe short tenminute event in the roosevelt room at the white house had familiar adlibbed trump asides digressions and playing to the gallery but with his daughter ivanka trump also in attendance it was as warm as it was unexpected considering he had just returned from europe amid the usual tumult in his administration and there was no advance notification of his participationthere was also the usual storm in the teacup with the conscientious objectors and critics complaining that he failed to greet hindus on the occasion and that he referred to south east asians when he meant south asiansit happened because an initial tweet from the realdonaldtrump account after the event picked a line from the middle of his speech and recognized the festival as a holiday observed by buddhists sikhs and jains without mentioning hindusbut trump began his remarks by saying i am thrilled to be here for the celebration of diwali the hindu festival of lights and i am honored to host this beautiful ceremony at the white house it took two more tweets for trump or his twitter handlers to post the opening line of his remarks which had referred to the hindu festival of lights by which time critics had a twitter meltdown were gathered together today to celebrate a very special holiday observed by buddhists sikhs and jains throughout the united states and around the world hundreds of millions of people have gathered with family and friends to light the diya and to mark the beginning of a new year a very special new year trump said later after breaking off to briefly talk about the california wildfires adding our nation is blessed to be home to millions of hardworking citizens of indian and southeast asian heritage who enrich our country in countless waystogether we are one proud american family do we agree with that huh i think so huh i think we do right laughter you better believe it he adlibbed turning around to banter with several indianamericans in his administration while expressing gratitude to numerous americans of indian and southeast asian heritage who fulfill critical roles across my administrationsouth east asia typically refers to countries east of india south of japan and china and north of australia but this white house is not exactly famous for its precision with words or geographyamong those trump greeted personally on the occasion was ajit pai chairman of the federal communications commission neil chatterjee chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission seema verma cms administrator uttam dhillon the acting administrator of drug enforcement agency and neomi rao administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairsalso present on the occasion was indias ambassador to the us navtej sarna whose term as envoy ends on