Narendra modi

NEW DELHI— India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet President Barack Obama in Washington in September during a visit aimed at restoring strained relations between the countries.
"At a meeting in New Delhi, Modi told U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns that he was accepting an invitation from Obama, the prime minister’s office said in a statement Friday.''
Modi said ties between the two democracies would be a powerful force for peace, stability and prosperity in the world.
“Burns conveyed President Obama’s desire to strengthen economic relations” between the countries, the statement said.
Several areas of bilateral interest including new technologies, energy security, counterterrorism and exchange of intelligence were listed in the statement as issues that were likely to figure in the talks between Obama and Modi.
Relations between India and the United States have been strained by the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York in December over charges of visa fraud.
There was widespread outrage in India when it became known that the diplomat, India’s deputy consul general in New York was arrested and strip-searched.
Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an outright majority in India's parliament in May, something no party has managed for three decades, ousting the Congress party that has long dominated politics.
India and the United States set great store by the economic potential of their ties, but their relationship has been fraught in recent years. Washington has set a strategic goal of expanding their $100 billion annual trade by five times.
In its statement, the Indian government said Modi was "looking forward to a result-oriented visit with concrete outcomes that impart new energy to (the) India-U.S. strategic partnership".
A spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that Modi had formally accepted Obama's invitation.
Modi was denied a visa in 2005 for travel to the United States following religious riots in 2002 while he was a state chief minister. Even so, he has responded positively to the U.S. advances and shown no resentment publicly.
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Ben Woods
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