First daughter Ivanka Trump will take Hyderabad by storm on Tuesday as she headlines a international conference that’s being put on by the Indian and American governments in the city’s tech quarter.
Trump will keynote the Global Entrepreneurship Summit on Tuesday, sharing the stage with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – whom she will dine with later at Falaknuma Palace, a royal residence that was converted in the last decade into a private hotel.
She is also participating in two panels at the women-focused symposium.
The senior White House advisor will spend 36 hours in the city, a U.S. official told DailyMail.com. Her departure from India will precede the conclusion of the three-day gathering in Hyderabad.
In spite of her short stay, the bustling city underwent a transformation in areas that Trump is expected to pass through.
Beggars were rounded up from the streets and displaced. Trees were painted and planted along the medians. Roadways were tidied and repaved – all to impress the U.S. president’s 36-year-old daughter, a senior adviser to her father.
First daughter Ivanka Trump will take Hyderbad by storm on Tuesday as she headlines a international conference that’s being put on by the Indian and American governments in the city’s tech quarter
In spite of her short stay, the bustling city underwent a transformation in areas that Trump is expected to pass through
Trees were painted and planted freshly coated medians, lights have been strung, sculptures were also brought in
Beggars like the man here were rounded up from the streets and displaced
Local residents say they are ‘proud’ that Trump is visiting Hyderabad over Mumbai, India’s largest city, or Delhi, its national capital.
Several chaffed at beautification project, though, telling DailyMail.com that greenery, artwork and sculptures ling the roadways now were not there a week ago.
‘I think it’s overrated, honestly,’ said 18-year-old engineering student Bhavani P. ‘They are cleaning up roads. They are decorating just because she’s coming.’
Trump is in town for GES at the invitation of Modi, an offer he extended to her this past summer when he visited the White House. The location of the summit was announced a year prior in a joint statement between former President Barack Obama and Modi during that June’s trip to Washington.
Obama launched the conference that will be held this week at Hyderabad International Convention Centre in 2010. Trump’s White House said this June that it would honor the agreement during Modi’s visit.
It was announced then that Ivanka would represent the U.S. at the event – a choice that CNN says roiled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In the previous administration, the nation’s top diplomat sometimes went to the summit. Once, when it was held in Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, the U.S. president was the nation’s chief delegate.
In the unconventional Trump White House, where Ivanka and her husband Jared both have jobs, the president’s daughter has thrice represented the U.S. government at major international events, including an apprenticeships forum in Germany and a women’s assembly in Japan.
Ivanka is in her own right a business owner, having built up her own, successful lifestyle and clothing brand. Her experience managing her personal business and her father’s real estate company, where she was an executive, and her name and face recognition from her appearances on the Apprentice have made her an appealing communicator within her father’s controversy-plagued administration.
Here in India, it’s Ivanka who has the potential to upset local apple carts with street closures and undisclosed sightseeing trip. Her brand’s treatment of factory workers in its production plants has also attracted some scrutiny in the context of her trip.
The theme of this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit is ‘Women First, Prosperity for All.’ Ivanka, a promoter of women’s issues, is speaking on panels that are titled ‘We Can Do It! Innovations in Workforce Development and Skills Training’ and ‘Be the Change: Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership.’
Shrugging off Trump’s visit, Aashritha Reddy, an 18-year-old college student who’s native to Hyderabad, said of the spotlight on women’s entrepreneurship at the summit: ‘Let’s see if it actually works.’
Twenty-seven-year-old Rohith, an engineering major who is currently employed at a Hyderabad electronics store, said he was pleased that Ivanka was visiting if only for the roadway improvements.
‘Now they made everything beautiful, planting trees,’ he said. ‘Governments are doing their jobs now.’
FirstPost and other publications in the area have also reported a rounding up of beggars in anticipation of the event, much like the city’s crackdown when Bill Clinton visited in 2000.
The local government has quashed that reporting and claimed it was part of an on-going campaign to rid the city’s streets of the homeless.
A Nov. 7 notice from the Hyderabad city police commissioner M. Mahendar Reddy said ‘many beggars are begging alms in an indecent manner’ and ’employing children and handicapped persons’ to help solicit cash.
‘Such acts are causing annoyance and awkwardness by exposing in an indecent manner to divert the attention of the vehicular traffic as well as pedestrians and public in general to induce them to give alms,’ the post said. ‘These acts are dangerous to the safety of the vehicular traffic and public in general.’
U.S. officials have been tight-lipped about Trump’s plans, even as local media has been abuzz with reports on where the president’s daughter is staying and where she will go when she’s not in Hitec City, the neighborhood that’s home to both her five-star accommodations and the summit.
According to the Times of India, the state’s most elite police divisions will be on guard Dragunov sniper rifles at the places she and Modi are traveling and door-to-door searches are being conducted of neighborhoods in the vicinity of the palace.
The publication also said that three bulletproof and mine-resistant limos are on loan for her trip from the U.S. Secret Service. (A request for comment from the agency by DailyMail.com was declined.)
Like other high-profile attendees of the summit, Trump is staying at the Westin on Hyderabad’s MindSpace campus.
She will be escorted at all times by local police vehicles, forcing road closures in the areas that she and other VIPs will be using to get from the hotel to the convention center and other points of interest.
The ornately-painted trees, sculptures and greenery do not complete her pathway, providing only a partial glimpse of where she will travel.
But Ivanka is confirmed to attend a dinner with Modi at Falaknuma on Tuesday and an ‘official breakfast.’
Times of India reported that Taj Hotels imported flowers from Thailand, Indonesia and Bengaluru, India, for the dinner at the property that it remodeled and opened for business in 2010. It also flew in a master chef for each dish on the menu and prepared gold and silver plates and cutlery for the occasion, Tomes of India reported.
A Trump administration official also said a ‘potential cultural stop’ is still in the mix, meaning that Trump could stop by Chowmahalla Palace, a residence of another Nizam of Hyderabad that remains that family’s property, or Charminar, a monument and monument that’s the the internationally-recognized symbol of Hyderabad.
Locally it has been reported that Trump may walk through the Laad Bazaar, a market close to Chariminar where bangle bracelets are sold.
That is assuming she has time after she participates in two bilateral meetings alongside State Department representatives.
Ivanka is expected to leave on Wednesday, although her exact departure date and time has not been shared.
A U.S. official said she was always due to the leave the conference after a whirlwind trip to help other White House aides with the GOP’s tax reform push.