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WASHINGTON —Jill Biden took Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a side trip to Virginia on Wednesday, a day before his formal state visit and dinner at the White House.
India's leader arrived from New York, where earlier Wednesday he participated in a yoga session with a multinational crowd on the lawn of the United Nations.
President Joe Biden, who invited Modi for the state visit, has spent the past two days in California raising money for his reelection campaign and was scheduled to return to Washington later Wednesday.
Despite deep differences with India over its record on human rights and its approach to Russia's war in Ukraine, Biden nevertheless extended to Modi the administration's third invitation for a state visit. With all the pomp and attention being paid to Modi, Biden hopes to firm up his relationship with the leader of a country the U.S. believes will be a pivotal force in Asia for decades to come.
In a warmup of sorts to Thursday, the first lady arranged a visit Wednesday to the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia, for an event highlighting workforce training programs for Modi, who leads one of the world's largest democracies with an estimated 1.4 billion people. She typically takes the spouse of a visiting leader on an outing in the Washington area, but Modi was traveling alone.
At the science foundation, the first lady and Modi met students from the U.S. and India, and they participated in a moderated conversation.
Earlier Wednesday, at the U.N. headquarters in New York, India's leader praised yoga as "a way of life" as he kicked off the public portion of his U.S. visit.
With a checkerboard of made-in-India yoga mats covering the U.N.'s spacious north lawn, Modi stopped and bowed at a statue of the assassinated Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi before saying in brief remarks that yoga was an all-ages, portable practice accessible to all faiths and cultures.
"It is a very old tradition, but like all ancient Indian traditions, it is also living and dynamic," Modi said. "Yoga is truly universal."
While yoga is a means to physical fitness, mental calm and emotional contentment, "it is not just about doing exercise on a mat. Yoga is a way of life," the 72-year-old leader said.
For Modi, who arrived Tuesday in New York on a trip that will offer plenty of time to discuss global tensions, highlighting an ancient pursuit of inner tranquility was a savvy and symbolic choice. He has made yoga a personal practice and a diplomatic tool.
The event honored the International Day of Yoga, which Modi persuaded the U.N. to designate in 2014 as an annual observance.