Rahul set to address Indian Americans at Times Square
USA VISIT Event a part of efforts by Indian National Overseas Congress ahead of 2019 polls
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has a date with New York’s iconic Times Square on September 20, nearly three years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi enthralled a packed Madison Square Garden in the Big Apple.
Gandhi will address a gathering — his first abroad — at Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York and the Congress party’s overseas wing is pulling out all stops to make it a success.
The event is part of the efforts launched by the Indian National Overseas Congress, headed by noted technocrat Sam Pitroda, to drum up support for the party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Modi had addressed a gathering of about 20,000 Indian Americans in New York on September 28, 2014. The speech was shown live on giant screens at Times Square, which is considered to be the hub of New York.
The head of the US-chapter of Indian National Overseas Congress Shudh Parkash Singh, who hails from Abohar, has roped in members of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana and Kerala chapters to ensure a full house. Overseas Congress leaders from Canada, Australia and England will also be in attendance.
Pitroda is spearheading the Gandhi’s event to engage with NRIs. The Congress V-P is expected to urge the diaspora to join his “crusade to empower the youth, women and farmers of India”. Prior to this, Gandhi is likely to meet the pioneers of research on Artificial Intelligence (AI), the science of making machines that think like humans during his visit to the US. Gandhi, who recently returned from Norway, will also address a conference on ‘India At 70: Reflections On The Path Forward’ at the University of California, Berkeley, on September 11.
But rights group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has urged the university to withdraw the invitation to Gandhi, citing the Congress party’s role in the antiSikh riots that erupted after the assassination of his grandmother and former PM Indira Gandhi in 1984. The organisers have promised “front row seats” to Indian journalists.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed the Centre’s approach towards health, saying the Modi regime is only concerned about private hospitals and not government ones.
“There is a view among the people that the Indian government healthcare system can be run by private hospitals. For a country like India where you have poor people, you simply cannot do away with public hospitals,” he said in a recorded video message. Gandhi said the government is not spending the money required for boosting the public healthcare system.
“Every time I have been there is because of encephalitis problems among patients. I categorically told PM Modi that there is a problem in the hospital. Everybody was complaining -doctors and patients,” said Gandhi, referring to the BRD Hospital in Gorakhpur. He said the UPA had always focused on increasing the amount of money for health care. “We pushed as hard as we could to improve the public health care system. But the current government simply does not care about it,” he said.
IANS