‘Aiming high, achieving higher’: PM Modi at Houston’s ‘Howdy, Modi’ event

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that India is aiming high and achieving higher. He made the remark while addressing ‘Howdy, Modi’, an event attended by around 50,000 people in Houston.

“Today India wants to move forward at a faster pace compared to earlier. Today India is challenging the opinion of those who thought nothing would ever change. In the last five years, 130 billion Indians have achieved results in every field, results which no one could ever have imagined. We are aiming high, we are achieving higher,” said Modi during his address to the mostly Indian diaspora.

The PM is on a seven-day visit to the US where apart from the ‘Howdy Modi’ event, he has a packed bilateral and multi-lateral agenda till September 27, including nine key speeches at high-level summits and multilateral engagements during the UN General Assembly session and on its sidelines.

Modi was joined by US President Trump at the ‘Howdy, Modi’ event. Both the leaders entered a packed NRG Stadium in Houston with clasped hands amid deafening drum beats. Both of them addressed the gathering.

The Indian Prime Minister spoke about revoking Article 370, called for a “decisive battle” against terrorism and those supporting it even as he called on the US to make the most of opportunities offered by his government’s plans to make India a $5-trillion economy in five years.

Addressing the gathering, President Trump vowed to fight “radical Islamic terrorism”. He also said,“India has never invested in the United States like it is doing today,” adding that “we’re doing the same thing in India.”

Prime Minister Modi has since arrived in New York where he will participate in the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly and take part in United Nations’ Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change and Leaders’ Dialogue on ‘Strategic Responses to Terrorist and Violent Extremist Narratives’.