Modi’s New York speech to go live across 20 U.S. cities

Mr Modi will address 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden indoor stadium

July 19, 2014 02:16 am | Updated 02:16 am IST - NEW DELHI

Fortaleza : Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President of China Xi Jinping during the bilateral meeting in Fortaleza in Brazil on Monday July 13, 2014.

Fortaleza : Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President of China Xi Jinping during the bilateral meeting in Fortaleza in Brazil on Monday July 13, 2014.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a gathering of around 20,000 people in New York, which will be broadcast live to crowds in 20 other cities in the United States on September 28, turning his first visit as Prime Minister there into a show of his popularity.

Former Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have addressed people of Indian origin and NRIs mostly in hotel ballrooms, with a few hundred in attendance. But Mr. Modi’s show will be unprecedented in its scale and political message, said sources involved in the preparations.

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal is coordinating efforts from New Delhi with Bharat Barai and Chandrakant Patel, prominent Gujarati NRIs, at the U.S. end.

The organisers had to shelve the original plan to gather 1,00,000 people in New York after they failed to find a big enough venue. Madison Square Garden, an indoor stadium in midtown Manhattan that has been booked for Mr. Modi’s show, can accommodate only 20,000, said Mr. Patel, president of the Overseas Friends of the BJP in the U.S. “As an alternative, we are organising a video-streaming of his speech to around 20 cities,” Mr. Patel told The Hindu over phone from Florida.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.