Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to go to United States on September 24, for, arguably, the most important tour that he will be undertaking — both, because the US is one of the largest and the most important trade partners for India, and because this may be the last time a crucial tour like this may be held before Barack Obama’s term as president ends.
Modi is going to be in the US for as many as six days, during which he will address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the large India diaspora, Silicon Valley honchos, concluding the visit with meeting Barack Obama.
The success of the meetings will pave the way for the future of India-US relation.
Here is the list of the India-US events:
September 21 – 22 (Washington DC): Strategic and Commercial Dialogue
— The Strategic and Commercial Dialogue is essentially a meet of the CEOs forum set up by US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
— This is the first of its kind of dialogue between the two nations.
— Will be attended by the US Secretary of State John Kerry, US Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. From India, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and Power, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal, along with top CEOs from both the sides are expected to attend the event.
Agenda:
— The primary objective of this ministerial meeting is to further intensify the two-way bilateral trade and encourage investments in important initiatives like smart cities, digital India, clean water, and so on.
— The Indian side will seek American participation in the development of the smart cities concept along with digital infrastructure.
— The CEOs will iron out issues and bottlenecks, and then present them to their respective governments for policy action.
— Top American corporates like Boeing, Apple, IBM, have already shown interest in doing business in India. Later in the week, all the corporate heads will meet Modi.
— This meet will set the objectives for the rest of the visit.
September 25: UN General Assembly
Prime Minister Modi will address the UN General Assembly at the UN Sustainable Development Summit, which will look at formally adopting crucial aspects of the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) agenda that was set during his last visit to the US.
Unlike in the past when heads of states’ September visits to the US revolved around the UNGA, this time Modi will be zooming in on the West Coast to push for India’s technology-driven development plans.
— This is the first visit of an Indian prime minister to California in over three decades. Modi will be departing from the convention of addressing the UNGA and, instead, will make a speech at the UN Sustainable Development Summit.
Modi has been making attempts to push for a permanent seat for India in the United Nations Security Council during bilateral meetings with world leaders.
September 26-27 Modi in Silicon Valley, addressing the vast Indian diaspora
Modi will meet top innovation leaders like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim cook, Google’ Sunder Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and so on, at the ‘India-US Start-up Konnect’
This is the first of its kind of event, organised by industry body Nasscom, TiE Silicon Valley, and IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE India. The platform will be used to showcase the strengths of India’s start-up ecosystems.
Agenda: Cultivating start-up ecosystems and the know-how of establishing start-ups will be the core objective of this meet.
— The day-long event will highlight multiple dimensions of Indian innovation capabilities, represented by more than 30 startups across sectors like agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial inclusion, and biotechnology, as well as leading technology business incubators in the country.
The startups will exhibit products, prototypes and achievements to their investors and other potential Valley partners.
— IIM Ahmedabad’s business incubator CIIE will also sign MoUs with corporates and academic partners in the US to collaboratively build and scale-up disruptive innovations for India, through financial assistance and collaboration.
— The Prime Minister will talk to these top technology leaders on how to put India in the digital race. He will visit Google(Alphabet) campus and Tesla Motors to see some of their recent technological innovations.
— Modi will be a part of Townhall Q&A at the Facebook headquarters along with Zuckerberg.
— Moreover, Modi is going to address a Renewable Energy Round table with USDOC and Stanford University.
Interacting with the Indian diaspora
Modi will interact with the vast Indian population settled in the US in San Jose on September 27th. This event, like all the others, is in focus after the huge success of Modi’s last address to the community at Madison Square.
September 28: Modi meets Obama
The two leaders are expected to focus their meet on major international issues like the Iran nuclear deal, renewable energy, military corporation, the civilian nuclear deal and climate change. This is an important meeting as it may be the last time the two may meet before Obama’s term ends.