 "PM on four-nation Africa visit from July 7")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a four-nation Africa visit, the first of his tenure to mainland Africa, from July 7 to 11. Modi will visit Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
New Delhi has shown enormous intent to consolidate its relations with African countries since it hosted the India-Africa Summit in October 2015. Recently, President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President M Hamid Ansari had visited Africa.
The visit is aimed at strengthening energy ties with Tanzania. There are also plans to grow pulses in Mozambique to meet the shortfall in India.
India's trade with Africa was $75 billion. In the last four years, India claimed to have announced $7.4 billion for developmental and capacity building projects in Africa. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, India had implemented nearly 140 projects in 41 African countries during the period.
Modi will visit Mozambique on July 7, South Africa on July 8-9, Tanzania on July 10 and then travel to Kenya the next day. In South Africa, the PM will also visit Pietermaritzburg, Durban and Johannesburg.
In Johannesburg, the PM will address an audience comprising some 8,000 members of the Indian diaspora. The highlight of the visit will be Modi's address to an estimated 20,000 members of the diaspora on July 10.
South Africa is a part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), to which India aspires to become a member. India and South Africa work closely in multilateral forums like BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), tripartite grouping IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa), G-20 and BASIC, a bloc of four large countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to travel to Pakistan in August to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Interior/Home Ministers' conference. Singh's will be a precursor visit to Islamabad for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting the Pakistani capital later this year to attend the SAARC Summit.
would be the first time since 2004 that an Indian PM will be on an official visit to Pakistan. The then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had attended the SAARC Summit in Islamabad in early 2004. Modi had paid a surprise visit to Lahore to wish Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on his birthday on December 25.
