An Indian community gathering and a Digital India conclave, which will assemble CEOs, tech-entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, researchers and professionals in Silicon Valley, and a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama in New York will be the highlights of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States in the last week of September.
The itinerary will be finalised in a day or two, but his two-day tour of Silicon Valley is being planned as a reach-out to the diaspora and the business community alike. To be mobilised largely from the west coast cities, 20,000 people are expected at the Indian community gathering at the SAP Centre at San Jose in California on September 27, Khande Rao Kand, convener of the organising committee, said.
BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who has been coordinating the party’s reach-out to the diaspora, will visit the U.S. next week for preparations. Mr. Madhav told The Hindu that a key thrust of the government was to take diplomacy beyond the conventional approach. “Communities are the focus. That includes the diaspora and the people of the host countries,” he said.
Obama-Modi meeting likely in New York
U.S. and Indian officials are trying to schedule a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and the Summit on U.N. Peacekeeping in New York on September 28.
Mr. Modi is likely to schedule a series of other bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the General Assembly during his stay in New York. A likely meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be of significance.
Mr. Modi will address the special session of the U.N. to celebrate the 70th year of its founding.
Khande Rao Kand, convener of the organising committee of an Indian-community gathering in California and a Maharashtra-born technology entrepreneur, told The Hindu on the phone from California that nearly 200 Indian organisations in various cities were part of the preparations and the organising committee would have some 50 members.
“The committee will have to be truly representative of the diversity of India — regional, religious, linguistic and professional,” he said. Mr. Modi is planning two more big events this year — in London and in Singapore, both in November. With 70,000 people in attendance, the London event at Wembley Stadium is slated to be the biggest of all Modi overseas shows until then.
