AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will be shielded from the sight of slums by a newly built wall when he visits the city of Ahmedabad during a visit to India this month.\u00a0Construction workers build a wall along a slum area as part of a beautification drive along a route that U.S. President Donald Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be taking during Trump’s visit later this month, in Ahmedabad, India, February 13, 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A senior government said the wall was being built for security reasons, not to conceal the slum district. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the contractor building it told Reuters the government \u201cdid not want the slum to be seen\u201d when Trump passes by on the ride in from Ahmedabad\u2019s airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been ordered to build a wall as soon as possible, over 150 masons are working round-the-clock to finish the project,\u201d the contractor said, speaking on condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government official conceded that the wall was part of a \u201cbeautification and cleanliness\u201d drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever the reason, the 400-meter-long and seven-feet-high wall will prevent the U.S. leader from getting a glimpse of a slum district that houses an estimated 800 families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, who has made his pledge to build a wall along the United States\u2019 border with Mexico a feature of his presidency, will visit India on Feb. 24-25 to reaffirm strategic ties that have been buffeted by trade disputes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is expected to attend an event dubbed \u201cKem Chho Trump\u201d (\u201cHow are you, Trump\u201d) at a stadium in Ahmedabad along the lines of the \u201cHowdy Modi\u201d extravaganza he hosted for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston last September. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump quoted Modi as saying \u201cmillions and millions of people\u201d would attend the rally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event provides Trump, who was impeached in December, with the opportunity to woo the support of hundreds of thousands of Indian-American voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some slum dwellers whose homes will be cordoned off by the wall in Ahmedabad – the largest city in Modi\u2019s home state of Gujarat – said the government was wasting tax-payer money to hide the poor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPoverty and slums are the reality of our life, but Modi\u2019s government wants to hide the poor,\u201d said Parvatbhai Mafabhai, a day worker who has lived there with his family for more than three decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will be shielded from the sight of slums by a newly built wall when he visits the city of Ahmedabad during a visit to India this month.\u00a0Construction workers build a wall along a slum area as part of a beautification drive along a route that U.S. President Donald Trump and India’s Prime… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4047,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}