US President Barack Obama’s Republic Day visit to be his second time in India

 

 

This will be President Obama’s second visit to India, the first being in November 2010, when he addressed the Indian Parliament. This will also be the first time a US President will visit India twice during his term at the White House. The acceptance of the invitation highlights how strong Mr Modi’s global image and influence is, and shows how he has come a long way from the time when he was denied a visa by the United States in 2005.

The US President’s January 2015 visit will also come just four months after Mr Modi’s hugely successful visit to the US in September. It is also bound to strengthen US strategic ties with India, which is considering acquisition of both attack helicopters and heavy-lift helicopters, more transport aircraft as well as ultra-light howitzer artillery guns from the United States in purchases that will be worth billions of dollars.

India and the US are also expected to further step up their defence engagement and this is something that will be watched closely by many countries, including China, Pakistan and even India’s long-standing trusted friend, Russia. The coming visit will also restore Indo-US ties fully to its earlier peak after the sharp downslide in the last few months of the previous UPA-2 government’s term last year and early this year.

MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said: "The Prime Minister had a very successful visit to the US in September. Following his return from there, as a personal initiative in one of his  conversations, he did extend an invitation to President Obama to be chief guest at the next Republic Day celebrations. Following that diplomatic conversation that the PM had with President Obama, a letter was sent in writing formalising  that invitation.

We have now received confirmation through diplomatic channels of President Obama agreeing to come to India as the first US President for a Republic Day as chief guest. This is also another first: President Obama will be the first US President to come to India for the second time in his term of office, and we will now look forward to this development which stems from the initiative of our PM which followed their bilateral meeting in Washington."