Jimmy Carter, the former US president who died on Sunday evening at the age of 100, had a special bond with India. A village in Haryana that he visited was named after him: ‘Carterpuri’.
On January 3, 1978, Mr Carter traveled with then First Lady Rosalynn Carter to Daulatpur Nasirabad – a village in Haryana, an hour’s drive from Delhi. According to the Carter Center, an NGO founded by Mr. Carter, the visit was so successful that residents renamed the area “Carterpuri” in the president’s honor. They also remained in contact with the White House for the remainder of Carter’s term.
Since then, January 3 was declared a public holiday in ‘Carterpuri’.
When Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, villagers held massive festivities and celebrated his honor.
The former US president’s visit came just a year after the lifting of the state of emergency and the victory of the Janata Party. During his stay in India, he had also addressed Parliament. Mr. Carter told the authoritarian regime at the time: “For the rest of this century and into the next, the world’s democratic nations will increasingly turn to each other for answers to our most pressing, common challenge: how to live up to our political and spiritual values. provide the basis for dealing with the social and economic stresses to which they will undoubtedly be exposed.”
Mr. Carter also had a personal connection to India, as his mother, Lillian, had worked in the country as a Peace Corps health volunteer in the late 1960s.
Since the Carter administration, the US and India have worked closely on energy, humanitarian assistance, technology, space cooperation, maritime security, disaster response and counterterrorism. In the mid-2000s, the two countries struck a landmark deal to move toward full civilian nuclear cooperation, and bilateral trade has skyrocketed since then, according to the Carter Center.
Jimmy Carter dies at age 100
Jimmy Carter, the longest-living American president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died at the age of 100. He had been in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia — the same city where he was born and once led — since mid-February 2023. a peanut farm before becoming governor of the Peach State.
“Carter died peacefully at his home in Plains, surrounded by his family,” the Carter Center wrote in a statement.
Carter’s son Chip told AFP: “My father was a hero, not just to me, but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights and selfless love.”
US President Joe Biden expressed his sadness over Carter’s death and declared January 9 a national day of mourning.
“I call on the American people to gather on that day in their respective places of worship to pay tribute to the memory of President James Earl Carter Jr.. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us to join us in this solemn celebration,” he said.