PM Narendra Modi takes his mother, Hiraba's blessing on the occasion of his 64th birthday (Press Trust of India photo)
Early this morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his mother in Gandhinagar to seek her blessings on his 64th birthday.
Hiraben, 95, gifted him with Rs. 5000 to be donated to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Jammu and Kashmir. The Prime Minister, dressed in a saffron kurta, drove the 23 km from Ahmedabad to his mother's Gandhinagar residence in a lone vehicle, without security.
As he arrived, Mr Modi touched his mother's feet and they spent 15 minutes together. Hiraben offered him sweets. Mr Modi makes it a point to meet his mother first thing in the morning on his birthday. This is his first visit to Gujarat after he took over as PM. (
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Hiraben did not attend his grand oath taking ceremony in May in Delhi and had watched from home on television.
Early callers to wish the PM a happy birthday today included Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Pranab Mukherjee. In birthday greetings Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa said, "I pray that the Almighty may grant you many more years of good health to serve our nation." (
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Birthday dinner will be partaken in an oversized white Swiss tent on the banks of the river Sabarmati - five such airconditioned luxury tents have been put up. The PM's special guest at dinner will be Chinese president Xi Jinping, who begins his India visit today by heading straight to Gujarat, before arriving in Delhi today. (
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A Gujarati banquet is planned and Mr Xi and over a dozen dignitaries from both sides will be served traditional delicacies like
khaman dhokla. Before dinner Mr Modi and Mr Xi will walk down the riverfront, which has been decked up for the occasion. (
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Nitin Patel, a government spokesperson, said folk dances from different parts of the state would be performed against the backdrop of Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram, located on the opposite bank.