Modi’s US visit to harp on reciprocal City-to-City interaction

Keeping in view the benefits of city-to-city cooperation between India and the United States, the visiting India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meet New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio.

This meeting scheduled on September 26 is expected find new venues and avenues for the American cities to partner with counterpart metropolis in India and thus lend a fillip to the ambition of Modi’s government to build hundred smart cities across the country.

“He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is looking forward to working with various American cities as technology partners for Indian initiatives on smart cities because as you are aware there are a hundred smart cities that are being focused on,” said Syed Akbaruddin, Spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs on September 23.

Modi has championed the cause of city-to-city cooperation between nations.

So much so, during his recent visit to Japan, the cities of Kyoto and Varanasi were paired as sister metropolis. Similarly, when China’s President Xi Jinping was in India, commercial hubs of Mumbai in India and Shanghai of China were paired together as sister cities. Pacts on similar lines are expected to be discussed during Modi’s trip to the US as well.

“Certainly there are a few Indian cities that have been thought of as possible beneficiaries of US as technology partners in this sort of a thing. But these are all work in progress, and you will know at the end and as we go further in our relationship with the US,” added Akbaruddin.

The Prime Minister, who will begin his trip to American on September 26, is also expected to meet New York’s former Mayor Michael Bloomberg on September 27.

Besides these two path-breaking meetings at the city level, Modi will also meet Governors of three other States. They are New York’s Andrew Cuomo, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Maryland’s Martin O’Malley who will interact with Modi on various prospects of cooperation between cities of the two leading democracies in the world.

This endeavour by Modi is bound to reinforce the essence of mutual concord between two cities of different countries and also redefine the term ‘global village’ through a pro-active link between metropolises located in opposing hemispheres.

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