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Updated: Sep 23, 2019 01:06 IST

Just minutes before the ‘Howdy, Modi’ event, President Trump tweeted that he will soon be with his “friend” Prime Minister Modi in Houston. Trump went on to add that it “will be a great day in Texas”.

Acknowledging President Trump’s message, PM Modi tweeted, “It surely will be a great day! Looking forward to meeting you very soon.”

The NRG stadium, where the two leaders will come together this evening, is reverberating with the chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and praises for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The stadium, where US and Beyonce have performed in the past, is jam-packed with enthusiastic Indian-Americans as the audience waits for the arrival of PM Modi and President Trump.

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The two world leaders, will be sharing the stage to address over 50,000 Indian-Americans during the ‘Howdy, Modi!’ event which has been envisioned on the theme of “Shared Dreams, Bright Future” and will focus on strengthening the India-US relationship.

Ahead of the event, a Punjabi troupe was seen enthralling the crowd as they played dhols and danced to its beats, with more members from the audience joining in with enthusiasm.

The roughly three-hour-long event is being organised at the sprawling NRG Football Stadium, one of the largest in the US.

Also Read | ‘Humbleness, simplicity’: PM Modi’s ‘down to earth’ gesture at Houston airport gets praises on Twitter

The summit will highlight the contributions of Indian-Americans in enriching the American life for the last seven decades as well as the key role they have played in strengthening relations between the two nations.

Prime Minister Modi will leave for New York shortly after the “Howdy, Modi!” event for a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings including a second meeting with President Trump for bilateral talks on Tuesday. There is an event later that day to mark the 150th birth anniversary Mahatma Gandhi, and, finally, his address to the UN General Assembly.

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Officials have said India is looking to launch its more substantive and focussed effort to forge new partnership going far beyond the usual BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), G-4 (India, Germany, Japan and Brazil) and IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) that have met every year ritualistically.

The Prime Minister will be hosting, for instance, the first-ever summit with leaders of the Caribbean countries.