During an in-person bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, United States President Joe Biden called Vice President Kamala Harris‘ mother Shyamala Gopalan, who was from India, a “remarkable woman.” Biden pointed out Harris’ Indian connection during his first in-person meeting with Modi. 

“When I showed the Prime Minister to his seat, I pointed out that that this seat is occupied almost every day by Vice President of US who is an Indian American. Vice President’s mother was from India, a scientist and a remarkable woman,” Biden said at the Oval Office during their first in-person meet between the two leaders.

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Meanwhile, Modi too praised Harris as a “source of inspiration” while extending an invitation to her to visit India. “Your election as Vice President of USA has been an important and historic event. You are a source of inspiration for many across the world. I am confident that under President Biden and your leadership our bilateral relations will touch new heights,” PM Modi said, according to ANI inputs.

“Continuing on this journey of victory, Indians would also want you to continue that in India and therefore they are waiting to welcome you. I extend you an invitation to visit India,” he added.

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“Your being elected as the Vice President of America has been such an important and historic event. You are the source of inspiration for so many people around the world,” Modi said.

Harris, 56, is the first-ever person of Indian origin to be elected as the vice-president of the United States.

Harris was born to two immigrant parents — a Black father and an Indian mother. Her father, Donald Harris, was from Jamaica, and her mother Shyamala Gopalan was a leading cancer researcher and civil rights activist from Chennai.

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Gopalan was the daughter of PV Gopalan, a civil servant.

Harris is the first Indian-American to be elected district attorney of San Francisco, the first South Asian American to become a US senator.

Fifty-six-year-old Harris began her career in the 1990s at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in the city of Oakland and later became the first woman of colour in 2011 to serve as California’s attorney general.