India's new prime minister to make a memory in US

By Park Sae-jin Posted : October 1, 2014, 17:10 Updated : October 1, 2014, 17:14

 

Nine years ago, Narendra Modi was barred from entering the United States because of his role as a Hindu nationalist in India. Next week, he gets the red carpet treatment and a meeting with President Obama at the White House because of his new role as leader of the world's most populous democracy. Modi, who became prime minister of India in May, will get a warm reception because he is also a business-friendly leader of one of the brightest economies in a world struggling to pull out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Modi's U.S. tour will include a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday and an appearance at a Madison Square Garden reception for Indian-Americans in New York on Sunday. More than 20,000 tickets have been sold for the event.

It's quite a change since Modi was denied a visa to the United States after Hindu militants massacred more than 1,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat in 2002 while he was governor. Modi, a devout Hindu, was never charged in connection with the incident. Nevertheless, Modi has remained controversial because of his promotion of the Hindu faith, which the majority of Indians practice.

"The visit has symbolic value for Modi," said Gurpreet Mahajan, a political science professor at JawaharLal Nehru University in New Delhi. "It displays a reversal of America's policy toward him."

In a recent interview on CNN, Modi said U.S.-Indian relations have improved in recent decades and will continue along that path. "India and the United States of America are bound together by history and by culture. These ties will deepen further."

By Ruchi Singh
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