In response to a question from the media on the visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Official Spokesperson of MEA conveyed the following:
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Chairperson of the National League of Democracy of Myanmar, would be visiting India from November 13-18, 2012. She is scheduled to deliver the Nehru Memorial Lecture on the occasion of the birth Anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on November 14, 2012. It would be recalled Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had accepted the invitation from Smt. Sonia Gandhi in her capacity as Chairperson of Nehru Memorial Fund to deliver the Nehru Memorial Lecture when she met the Prime Minister during his visit to Myanmar in May 2012.
During her visit, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is scheduled to call on the Vice President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and External Affairs Minister. She will pay tributes at the Samadhis of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will visit her alma mater, Lady Sri Ram College, where she will interact with the faculty and students and also visit The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Gurgaon. Besides her engagements in Delhi, she will be travelling to Bangalore where she will visit the Indian Institute of Science and the Infosys Campus. She is also scheduled to tour rural areas in Andhra Pradesh to gain a firsthand impression of the rural development and women’s empowerment programmes being undertaken in India.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi spent several years in India during her early days when her mother Daw Khin Yi was Ambassador to India. She also spent some time as a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla in 1987.
The close and friendly relations between India and Myanmar have been strengthened in the recent past through exchanges of high level visits, including the State visits of the President of Myanmar to India in October 2011 and the Prime Minister of India to Myanmar in May 2012. The visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be part of our ongoing engagement with the democratic and multi-party polity in Myanmar. It would provide opportunity to exchange views on all matters of mutual interest with a view to building upon the positive momentum in India-Myanmar relations.
