PM Modi to visit Fiji next month

New Delhi, October 27, 2014 (Agencies) Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s keenness to engage with the Indian diaspora may take him to Fiji, an island nation on the South Pacific Ocean, where a sizable number of people have their roots in India.The Prime Minister’s Office is working on a proposal for a day-long tour by Modi to Fiji on November 19 after his visit  to Australia. If Narendra Modi travels to Fiji, he will be the second Indian prime minister to visit the nation, where people with Indian roots constitute over 38 per cent of the population. Indira Gandhi was the first Indian prime minister to visit the country in 1981.

Modi is likely to call on Fijian President Epeli



Nailatikau and have a meeting with Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama during his stay in the capital Suva. The High Commission of India in Suva is understood to have been asked to make arrangement for Modi’s meeting with Fiji-Indian community. Modi may also offer prayers at Sri Siva Subramaniya temple at Nadi, which is about 200 km from Suva. 

The Fiji-Indian community consists of mainly descendants of indentured labourers British planters took from India to work in sugarcane farms there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The community now includes descendants of the Gujarati and Punjabi migrants, who voluntarily travelled to Fiji and set up business in the 1920s and 1930s.