Where does India fit in the new world order?

India’s economy is set to progress “very fast” as the government takes steps to boost growth, including easing visa rules and changing outdated laws, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event in New York City.

India “is going to move at a very fast speed,” Modi said to 20,000 mostly Indian Americans at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. “No stone will be left unturned” as his administration revamps procedures and cuts transaction times, he said. Travel-rule changes for non-resident Indians and US tourists “will be implemented very soon,” he said.

Modi’s remarks marked a high point in his visit to New York before he heads to Washington for meetings with US President Barack Obama on Monday and Tuesday. The trip, coming four months after a landslide election win, is Modi’s first to the US since he was denied a visa over 2002 anti-Muslim riots in his state of Gujarat.

Indian Americans from a spectrum of religious, cultural and professional groups and more than two dozen US lawmakers attended the gathering, which was organised by the Indian American Community Foundation. The address was also carried live via webcast on big screens in New York’s Times Square and other venues along with an English translation.

Richard Haass, president at Council on Foreign Relations, and Ezekiel Emanuel, ethics and health policy department chair at UPenn, discussed India's economy on Bloomberg.

more