US Vice President J D Vance, wife Usha Vance to visit India next week

US Vice President J D Vance and his wife Usha Vance will travel to India next week, his office announced on Wednesday.

Vance and the Second Family will travel to Italy and India from April 18 to April 24, during which the Vice President will “discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders in each country,” a statement from the Office of the Vice President said.

In India, the Vice President will visit New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra early next week.

“The Vice President will hold meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Vice President and Second Family will also participate in engagements at cultural sites,” the statement said.

In Rome, Vance will meet with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The visit to India will be Usha’s “first time visiting her ancestral country as Second Lady”, a report in the Politico had said last month.

Usha’s parents, Krish Chilukuri and Lakshmi Chilukuri, emigrated from India to the US in the late 1970s. Krish is a lecturer in Academic Affairs in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at San Diego State University, while Lakshmi is a teaching professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Provost of Sixth College at the University of California, San Diego.

Usha and Vance met while attending Yale Law School. A litigator by profession, Usha has clerked for US Supreme Court Chief Justice John G Roberts and Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She has a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

India