Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off his three-day visit to Washington starting on Monday by visiting the 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier' at the Arlington National Cemetery.
As Modi laid a wreath at the cemetery, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.
Modi was received by Defence Secretary Ashton Carter at the US' most hallowed military ground. The Arlington sarcophagus contain the remains of service members from the First and Second World Wars, and the Korea and Vietnam wars. The 3rd US Infantry Regiment has famously stood guard over the monument through howling blizzards and hurricanes since 1948.
Modi also paid tribute to astronaut Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian woman in space and her six crew members who died as the Columbia space shuttle flew apart while re-entering Earth's orbit on 1 February, 2003.
Modi interacted with Chawla's husband, Jean-Pierre Harrison, complimenting him warmly on his Gujarati Kutch embroidered jacket. A charmed Harrison presented Modi with his wife’s biography The Edge of Time. Harrison’s memoir about his wife describes how Punjab Engineering College graduate Chawla emigrated to the US in the 1980s to become an astronaut in 1994. Chawla made her first space flight in 1997 as a mission specialist and prime robotic arm operator.
After the wreath laying ceremony, Modi interacted with astronaut Sunita Williams and her father Deepak Pandya. Senior officials from Nasa also met Modi at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial. Nasa has a long and successful history of space cooperation with India, beginning in 1963 when India first launched a US-manufactured sounding rocket from Thumba to study Earth’s magnetic equator.
Free Download App : News World
Modi, 65, has kept the most grueling of travel schedules on his five nation tour: He scored a big win in Geneva on Monday for India's bid to be admitted to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). He touched down in Washington later on Monday afternoon to hurl himself into a flurry of activities.
