White House highlights Obama trip with fun video starring Penn

Washington, Jan 29: A video that has popular Indian- American actor Kal Penn riding an auto rickshaw incognito on Delhi streets while sharing his impressions of President Barack Obama's India visit has been posted on the White House website.

Kalpen Suresh Modi or Kal Penn as he is popularly known as, was part of the US delegation to India led by Obama, but took time off from official engagements to drive down to some parts of New Delhi in an auto rickshaw. The video in which Penn, who is on President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, has been posted on the White House website.

It also narrates his impression about Obama's historic visit. In the video, running into 2.52 minutes, Penn whose parents are from Gujarat, explains why the US President was in India to attend the Republic Day Parade as its Chief Guest at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Penn explains that Obama accepted the invitation as this was a unique opportunity and that the US President and Modi have developed a very close relationship after the September 2014 meeting between the two at the White House.

"Who doesn't love democracy. Well, I can think of some people who don't love democracy, but we're not talking about those people today," Penn said in the video dubbed as 'On Board with Kal Penn'. Along with the video, the White House has also posted key highlights of the trip on its blog which is titled 'Chalein saath saath' (lets go forward together).

"President Obama and the First Lady travelled to India this week -- their first time visiting the South Asian nation since Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn-in on May 26, 2014. "America and India are true global partners in the work of strengthening economies and strong democracies. That is why the President is the first to have visited India twice while in office," said the blog written by Tanya Somander, Deputy Director of Digital Content for the Office of Digital Strategy, White House.

Before joining the White House, Somander served as the new media director for House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, a digital writer for Obama for the 'America 2012' campaign and a reporter for 'ThinkProgress'. In her blog, Somander also gives a colourful glimpse of the Republic Day Parade. This was the first time that a US President attended the annual Parade.

PTI