Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi arrived in the United States (US), landing in San Francisco on May 30th where he was received by Sam Pitroda, who handles the party’s overseas affairs. Pitroda is credited to be the father of India’s telecom revolution.
Rahul Gandhi is on a 10 days visit to the US. Gandhi is scheduled to interact with students at the prestigious Stanford University in San Francisco. He will address a press conference and have meetings with lawmakers and think tanks in Washington DC.
He is also likely to address Indian Americans and interact with Wall Street executives and university students during his week-long tour of the USA. He is slated to conclude his trip with a public gathering in New York on June 4. The interaction would take place at the Javits Center in New York.
The Congress leader is slated to meet technology executives from Silicon Valley to discuss artificial intelligence, as per The Quint report.
He will also deliver a lecture at California’s Stanford University on ‘The New Global Equilibrium’.
Gandhi will also interact with venture capitalists, academics, intellectuals and activists during his San Francisco trip, the report added.
On the first two days of June, the 52-year-old former Wayanad MP will be visiting Washington DC.
Speaking about how the idea for the six-day trip was conceived, Praveen Chakravarty, Congress’ Data Analytics department chairman and Rahul Gandhi’s close aide, told The Quint that it started when the Gandhi scion received an invitation from Stanford University last month to deliver a lecture.
Chakravarty said while the origin of the visit was an invitation for an “intellectual discussion,” it became “more about diaspora outreach, as well as meeting local think tanks, thinkers and academics – to discuss global affairs.”
Notably, Gandhi’s trip has come just weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to arrive for a state visit to the White House.
Last week, Indian Overseas Congress chairperson Sam Pitroda said Gandhi’s visit is aimed at promoting shared values and a vision of “real democracy”. “The purpose of his (Gandhi’s) trip is to connect, interact and begin a new conversation with various individuals, institutions, and media, including the Indian diaspora that is growing in numbers in the United States and abroad to promote the shared values and vision of the real democracy with a focus on freedom, inclusion, sustainability, justice, peace, and opportunities world over,” Pitroda said in a statement.
Rahul Gandhi received a new ordinary passport on Sunday, two days after a local court granted its no objection to the issuance of the same, the news agency PTI reported citing sources. The passport office had assured Gandhi in the morning that the passport would be issued to him on Sunday and he got it in the afternoon, the report said. The former Congress chief had applied for an ordinary passport after surrendering the old diplomatic passport issued to him when he was a member of parliament.
