At 3 pm in Maryland on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the US from Switzerland as part of his five-nation tour.
This is Modi’s second bilateral visit to the US after September 2014. The Prime Minister is visiting at the invitation of US President Barack Obama, who in the last year of his presidency is inviting a few world leaders with whom he shared a “close and productive working relationship”.
Here are the highlights from his first day in the US:
On the first day of his visit, Modi met the heads of US think tanks.
Modi attended a function during which Indian idols lying in the US were returned to India.
Modi thanked US President Barack Obama for the gesture.
Modi laid a wreath at the Arlington Memorial, where bodies of American soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their country have been laid to rest.
Arlington National Cemetery, as it is officially known, is the final resting place of many of the US’ greatest heroes, including more than 300,000 veterans of every American conflict, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq and Afghanistan, the US National Park Services website states.
Modi is the third Indian Prime Minister to visit the Arlington Memorial after Jawaharlal Nehru in 1949 and Indira Gandhi in 1966.
Modi on Monday laid a wreath at the Tomb of Unknown Soldiers and paid homage to Indian-American astronaut late Kalpana Chawla at Arlington National Cemetery.
He also had a brief interaction with the husband and family members of Chawla, senior officials from NASA, Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and her father at Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial.
(With agency inputs)
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