United States' Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster on Friday hosted a cultural diplomacy event at his official residence celebrating Indian culture with a special Kuchipudi dance performance featuring Y. Lalitha Sindhuri.
During the event, Justin welcomed Indian cultural enthusiasts to Roosevelt House, the chief diplomatic residence of the US ambassador, in the US Embassy.
The programme celebrated the 230th anniversary of the Department of State in India along with 225th year of US' presence in the country.
"One of the most important aspects of the relationship between India and the US is the cultural programme and what we share together. We want to highlight this evening with Lalita's performance and noteworthy is that she is a Fullbright fellow," Juster told .
A 2017-18 Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow at Barnard College in New York, Lalitha performed three dances at the event.
She was accomped by vocalist Dandibhotla Srinivasa Venkata Sastry, violinist K L N Murthy, flautist V B S Murali and mridangist M Chandra Kanth.
"My motto through my art is to build that friendly relationship across the world, raising the borders, create empathy and kindness. It is the right opportunity for me to start with as I can showcase my art to everyone irrespective of the language," Lalitha told .
The US Mission to India promotes cross-cultural exchanges and builds linkages between Indian and US cultural and educational institutions.
Nearly 200,000 Indians are studying in US colleges and universities today and there are over 20,000 alumni of US government-sponsored exchange programmes in India.
Talking about the impact of culture in Indo-US diplomacy, Juster said, "One of the things I mentioned is that we have many different areas where we work together as two countries and the foundation is people to people relationship."
"That was brought together in many ways including cultural exchanges and tonight was a good example of that," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )