Rama Krishna Sangem
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US President Joe Biden three times in the next five months this year. These meetings will make up for a sort of communication gap between the two leaders for sometime, though there hasn’t been any lowering in the bilateral ties at the top level. Certain delays in clearing visas to Indians by the US embassies for sometime is attributed to some kind of frostiness in the ties. Now this is expected to change.
PM Modi is likely to visit US in the third week of June – between June 21 and 25. President Biden will host his first state dinner to Modi at White House. The Indian PM will also be invited to address the US congress, according to those who working on these details. Though not confirmed, Modi, as usual, will address Indian diaspora during this visit and if possible participate in International Yoga Day event in New York on June 21.
During this meeting, Modi will invite Biden to India to participate in G 20 summit to be held on November 15-16 in New Delhi. This year’s G-20 summit is keenly watched by all the world leaders as it will see presence of US President Biden, Russian President Putin, British PM Rishi Sunak and Chinese President Xi Jinping, among others. Ukraine leaders have already urged India to allow them to attend the summit to present their case on the ongoing war on them.
Quad summit in Australia
If G-20 summit will be the second occasion for Modi and Biden meeting, in between comes another opportunity at Quad summit in Australia in August this year. President Biden, Australian PM Anthony Albanese and Japan PM Fumio Kishida will have a winder range of talks with PM Modi at Quad. This summit will be followed by within a few weeks the G-20 summit in New Delhi.
Needless to say, in all these meetings, PM Modi will have to do a tight rope walk between the two major camps – one is headed by the US and another coordinated by Russia and China. The hot point is the ongoing war in Ukraine for the last 15 months. In every of the declarations issued at the end of these summits the crucial obstacle is expected to be the war and calls to end it, but how. As the leader of G-20, Indian PM has an unenviable challenge on his hands now.
