WASHINGTON (HRNW) — Jill Biden is taking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a side trip to Virginia on Wednesday, a day before his formal state visit and fancy dinner at the White House.
India’s leader was arriving from New York, where earlier Wednesday he performed back bends and corpse poses during a yoga session with a multinational crowd on the lawn of the United Nations.
President Joe Biden, who invited Modi for the state visit, has spent the past two days in California raising money for his reelection campaign and was due back in Washington later Wednesday.
Despite deep differences with India over its record on human rights and its approach to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Biden nevertheless extended to Modi the administration’s third invitation for a state visit. With all the pomp and attention being paid to Modi, Biden hopes to firm up his relationship with the leader of a country the U.S. believes will be a pivotal force in Asia for decades to come.