Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said he is very happy that US first lady Melania Trump will attend “happiness class” at a city school on Tuesday.
.@FLOTUS will attend happiness class in our school today. Great day for our teachers, students and Delhiites. For centuries, India has taught spirituality to the world. Am happy that she will take back the msg of happiness from our school.
Melania Trump will visit a Delhi government school in Moti Bagh where she will review the “Happiness Class” programme implemented by the government of the capital city.
After meeting the children, she is expected to attend “happiness classes” started by the Delhi government. As a part of the programme, students are taught various activities including meditation, street plays, basic obedience aimed at reducing anxiety and stress levels among children.
According to the sources, Melania Trump will reach the school in south Delhi around noon and spend over an hour there. The US first lady will visit the school solo.
Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were earlier scheduled to welcome her at the school and brief her about the ‘happiness class’. However, the US Embassy communicated to the city administration on Saturday that names of Kejriwal and Sisodia do not figure in the list of invitees for the event.
Expressing anguish over the exclusion of the names of the two leaders from the list, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said it is a “protocol” and “convention” that state leaders are present when any foreign leader attends events in their states.
The party alleged that the names of Kejriwal and Sisodia were dropped at the behest of the BJP-led central government.
The US Embassy on Sunday clarified that it did not have any objection to the presence of Kejriwal and Sisodia during Melania Trump’s school visit.
Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s education minister, has said he would have loved to receive the US First Lady at the school but respected the concerns raised by the US Embassy over it.
Melania and her husband, US President Donald Trump, are in India on a 36-hour visit. On the second day of the visit today, Trump will get a ceremonial welcome at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan at 10:00 am followed by a visit to Rajghat where he will pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. The US President will lay the wreath at Rajghat and observe one-minute of silence. He will also be signing the Visitors’ Book.
Trump will hold restricted and then delegation-level bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Hyderabad House. This will be followed by the signing of agreements between the two sides and press statement by both the leaders.
In the evening, the US President will hold a presser before he drives to Rashtrapati Bhavan again for meeting President Ram Nath Kovind. He will aslo attaend the state banquet hosted in his honour by President Kovind.
Later, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu will also call on the visiting US President.