PM Narendra Modi to meet as many as 11 top corporate honchos during United States

PM Narendra Modi would be meeting as many as 11 top corporate honchos over breakfast on September 29 apart from one-on-one meetings with six more business captains the same day in New York. He will also be participating in a business meet, to be organised by USIBC that is expected to be attended by 300-400 businessmen in Washington on September 30.

"I look forward to meeting business leaders to invite them to participate more actively in India's economic growth and transformation. This is message that I will also convey to the US business community in Washington DC. 

"My participation in a public event in Central Park in New York on poverty is to focus international attention on this great challenge for humanity and affirm my support for global civic action, especially involving the youth, to address it," said Modi.

Referring to his scheduled address at the Madison Square Garden in New York on September 28, he said he was keenly awaiting the opportunity to meet the Indian-American Community there. "Their success in diverse fields, their contribution to the United States, their abiding bonds with India and their role as a vibrant bridge between the two largest democracies is a source of pride for us. They serve as a window to our heritage, progress and potential," he said.

Modi would also be meeting the top American political leadership ranging from former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Indian-American South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
In Washington, there is a very high level of expectation from Modi's meeting with President Obama.

Obama has gone out of his way to host a rare private dinner for Modi at the White House on September 29, so as to establish a personal relationship with the Indian leader. Ahead of his main summit at the White House on September 30, Modi would visit the Martin Luther King Memorial and Lincoln Memorial in Washington and pay floral tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's statue in front of the Indian Embassy.

This would be for the first time that an Indian Prime Minister would have so many public and private engagements during a US visit.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio would make a courtesy call on the Prime Minister shortly after he arrives. Modi would also meet Nobel laureate Harold Eliot Varmus, who is the current Director of the National Cancer Institute.

He will pay a visit to the 9/11 memorial in New York on Saturday following which he is expected to drive down to the United Nations headquarters to address the 69th annual session of UN General Assembly. He would also meet UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon.