Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday gave the United States Vice President Kamala Harris a special gift – two old notifications issued by the Government of India in 1956 and 1966 about the services of her grandfather and eminent bureaucrat P V Gopalan, both in handcrafted wooden frames.
Modi also gifted Harris a Gulabi Meenakari chess set made by the craftsmen of his constituency, Varanasi.
The January 21, 1956 Government of India notification was about the transfer of Gopalan, who was then a permanent Grade I officer of the Central Secretariat Service, from the post of the Under Secretary in the Ministry of Transport (Roads Wing) to the Ministry of Rehabilitation with effect from December 31, 1955. The January 28, 1966 notification was about Gopalan relinquishing the office of the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Rehabilitation with effect from January 28, 1966, as he was placed on a deputation to the Government of Zambia as Director of Relief Measures and Refugees.
This was the first meeting between Modi and Harris after the Indian-American became the Vice President of the US.
Harris, who represented California in the US Senate since 2017, never distanced herself from her biracial identity, unlike some other Indian-American politicians. She has rather always proudly talked about her upbringing that was greatly influenced by her grandfather, Gopalan, who served as a bureaucrat in the Government of India, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who was born in Chennai, migrated to the United States in pursuit of a career in medical research, joined civil rights movement, married another immigrant from Jamaica, Donald Harris, and fought against all odds to raise two daughters after her divorce.
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(Published 24 September 2021, 17:19 IST)
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