EAM Jaishankar pushes for US consulate in Bengaluru

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar discussed the upcoming opening of a US Consulate in Bengaluru during a conversation on his book, highlighting Bengaluru's significance as a global city. He emphasized India's growing impact on the world stage highlighting the achievements in diplomatic challenges like the G20 presidency and Chandrayaan's Moon landing.

Bengaluru: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said he would take up the matter of opening of a US Consulate in Bengaluru in his next meeting with the US Ambassador. Speaking during a discussion on his latest book, Why Bharat Matters', with Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya,

Jaishankar said: Tejasvi and I kept meeting in Parliament often and on every occasion, he would bring up the topic of the US Consulate. I even asked him to meet the US Ambassador then (Kenneth Juster) and make a request there, which he did (in March 2020). "Now, I am glad that we could take a decision to open a US Consulate in Bengaluru during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to USA last year.

"Bengaluru is a global city and it's natural that there should be a US Consulate here. I will go and remind Eric Garceti (the current US Ambassador to India) that he needs to set it up fast," he said. During PM Modi's visit to the US on June 22, 2023, it was announced that the US would open two new consulates in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, while India would establish a mission in Seattle.At the book discussion, Jaishankar also spoke on India's border development as well as on the influence of foreign policy on common people. "We have become much more self-confident, much more self-aware, much more impactful on the world. Just think back. Over the last few years, I think a large part of the world admired how we came through Covid; the solutions we found for ourselves," he said speaking about the past five years.

"We handled what was an immensely complex diplomatic challenge in the G20 presidency. We not only took it up, we not only got outcomes and brought everybody to the table, we actually even got a long-awaited reform there done, which was to bring in the African Union," he added. Jaishankar also highlighted India's other achievements that caught the attention of the world, especially the landing of Chandrayaan in a particularly difficult part of the Moon.

Responding to Surya's comment on how foreign policy is not a distant philosophy under the Modi government, Jaishankar said: There are roughly 34 million Indians and persons of Indian Origin across the world. Half of them are Indian citizens who are blue collar workers, and students make up 1.3 million. If there's a problem for them, it can happen to anyone who has gone abroad as a tourist. Is it not the basic duty of the government to look after them?"

He further said, "In this government, we have put in place a system which is based on fairness, efficiency and scale. This is how seven million people were brought back to India during the Vande Bharat Mission. Even on Feb 22, 2022 when there were 20,000 students in Ukraine, or with the Taliban in Afghanistan or the civil war in Sudan, India has been able to rescue them."

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