Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, now on a week-long visit to the United States, believes that India-US friendship is witnessing a “golden period” under the stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During a series of interactions with the Indian-American community and Corporate America over the last two days, Chouhan made a strong pitch for US investments in Madhya Pradesh by holding forth on the State’s “remarkable progress” and “abundant investment possibilities”, notably in automobile and food processing sectors.
He touted the Modi Government’s push on demonetization and Goods and Services Tax (GST) as examples of bold policy measures that only a
Prime Minister of the calibre of Narendra Modi could spearhead.
Responding to his invitation to American investors, the US India Business Council, an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce, announced that it would lead a business delegation to Madhya Pradesh next month when it would also be visiting Hyderabad for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Chouhan is also scheduled to visit New York, where he will deliver a keynote address on investment opportunities in Madhya Pradesh. He will have meetings with representatives of top American businesses, including Amazon and Goldman Sachs.
At his meetings here, which also included a Capitol Hill event on Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s philosophy of integral humanism, Chouhan dwelt on a series of welfare schemes advancing Upadhyaya’s concept that are being implemented by the Modi Government at the Centre and his own Government in Madhya Pradesh.
Participating in a dialogue on the occasion of the birth centenary of Deendayal Upadhyaya, Chouhan said that as a society, India has “imbibed the concept of inclusive humanism in our culture”, even while conceding that it had a long way to go in ameliorating the lot of needy segments of the populace.
Asserting that India is following the principle of coexisting with nature for centuries, he spoke of the large-scale river rejuvenation and plantation drives to deal with the challenge of climate change.
Against the backdrop of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the multilateral Paris agreement on climate change, Chouhan said: “We all need to respect the Paris climate accord. India has demonstrated strong commitment to do its best to lower greenhouse gas emissions…It’s the real issue and we can’t shy away from the responsibility towards Mother Nature.”
“All nations including the US would have to pledge (to secure and protect mother earth), or else this planet would not be livable for anyone,” Chouhan said in his remarks at the event, organized by the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) in association with the Embassy of India.