Houston: The stage is all set for the mega ‘Howdy Modi’ event where US President Donald Trump will join Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will address over 50,000 Indian-Americans, but the torrential rains triggered by a tropical storm have wreaked havoc in this city, prompting the Governor Greg Abbott to declare emergency in 13 counties of the state of Texas.
Tropical Depression ‘Imelda’ slammed Texas, Thursday, causing devastating flooding, power outages and prompting urgent rescues and warnings across southeastern Texas for people to stay indoors.
“This happened very quickly. It just demonstrates that in this day and time, climate change is real. We no longer have to be concerned just with a hurricane. We have to be concerned with almost any sort of weather system that can quickly evolve into a major storm and produce a great deal of rain,” Greg Abbott said.
However, the volunteers of the ‘Howdy Modi’ event are upbeat and confident that all the attendees at the sprawling NRG stadium here will have an experience they will cherish all their lives.
Leading volunteer Achalesh Amar told this agency Thursday that over 1,500 volunteers have been working round the clock to make the event a grand success. “We are going to have a fantastic programme Sunday,” he said.
The mammoth event reflects the growing size, power and complexity of the Indian-American community, both in the Houston area and the US, he said.
US President Trump, along with a number of high-ranking US government officials – including Governors, Members of Congress and Mayors – will join Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the event.
“This is going to be a kind of family celebration. We want to say, ‘Look at our community here! We are successful. We are strong. We have done good things for Houston!’’ We would like Modi to know all of this,” the organisers said.
Swapan Dhairyawan, president of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston (IACCGH), said he has witnessed how Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s visit to India in November 2018 enhanced the bilateral trade.
Dhairyawan said he was confident that Modi’s visit here and his meeting with Trump and top CEOs will ‘make new inroads in furthering business opportunities in oil and gas, healthcare and Innovation – Houston’s three core sectors’.
“We need a non-stop flight from Houston to New Delhi. The Indian PM announced a direct flight from San Francisco to New Delhi during his 2015 speech in Silicon Valley, chamber members hope the same happens at Houston,” said Dhairyawan.
Jagdip Ahluwalia, founding secretary and executive director of the IACCGH, said President Trump attending the event was a sign of the ‘growing importance of the US-India relationship’.
“Modi’s last visit to Washington and meeting with Trump led to a multibillion dollar deal by India to buy US crude oil, a lot of which will ship from our region and we are positive Modi’s visit to the home of the energy hub, NASA will lead to a new series of bilateral opportunities between our region which IACCGH is here to help facilitate and support,” Ahluwalia said.
Before Prime Minister Modi delivers the community address, he is scheduled to have a round table meeting with various energy-related top business leaders. There are also some community-related brief meetings involved during his short trip to Houston, which includes meeting Kashmiri Pandits settled in the US.
Meanwhile, some protests by the International Humanitarian Foundation of Houston are also being planned against Modi’s visit and some pro-Pakistan and anti-Kashmir billboards have also appeared at some places in the city.
PTI