Modi to address UNGA, meet Biden, Harris in US

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have bilateral meetings with both US President Joe Biden (September 24) and vice president Kamala Harris (September 23) in the course of a busy threeday trip to the US that will see him addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the first speaker of the day.

The highlight of the trip is also the first in-person meeting of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, leaders on September 24, with Modi, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga and Australian PM Scott Morrison being hosted by Biden in the White House. The US President will also host a gala dinner the same day.

According to people in US and Indian diplomatic circles, Modi will also meet one-on-one with five chief executives of top American companies on September 23. While Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to be one of the five who will meet the Indian PM in Washington, the other names are still being finalised. The same day, Modi will also have bilateral meetings with Suga and Morrison.

On the second day of the visit, the Indian PM will attend

a series of meetings at the White House. This will be his first meeting with Biden after the latter became US President and his first ever in-person meeting with Harris. He has met Biden before, on his first visit to the US as prime minister in 2014. Biden was vicepresident at the time in the administration of President Barack Obama.Modi is expected to leave for New York soon after the Quad dinner on September 24.

Modi last addressed UNGA in-person 2019 as the 2020 meetings were held virtually amid a raging Covid-19 pandemic that had hit New York state and city the hardest in the US at the time, turning them into ground zero of the worst public health crisis faced by the world in more than 100 years.

While Air India has asked