NEW DELHI: Myanmar's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will make her first trip in 25 years to India next month, a country where she studied and her mother served as an ambassador, an organiser said Friday.
Suu Kyi will deliver the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru memorial lecture, which honours independent India's first prime minister, on November 14 in New Delhi, organisers told AFP.
"Preparations are on for the lecture, it is a very important event for us," said a secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
A spokesman for India's foreign ministry said they were still working out the rest of the itinerary for Suu Kyi, which is expected to involve meetings with Indian political leaders.
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had invited 67-year-old Suu Kyi to deliver the lecture during his ice-breaking visit to Yangon in May, which was the first trip by an Indian premier to Myanmar in 25 years.
Once an ardent campaigner for Suu Kyi, India faced criticism in recent years for its engagement with Myanmar's former junta, which kept the democracy activist locked up and silenced under house arrest for 15 of the past 22 years.
But New Delhi has since pointed to recent dramatic reforms under a new quasi-civilian regime, including Suu Kyi's election to parliament in April by-elections, as a validation of its engagement strategy.
Following her release from house arrest in 2010 after controversial elections, the Nobel laureate said that she had been "saddened" by India's lack of support.
India is seeking business opportunities and influence in Myanmar, with which it shares a border, but it faces stiff competition from better established Chinese firms and other regional powers.
Suu Kyi last visited India in 1987 when she travelled to Simla to join her husband Michael Aris, who was pursuing Himalayan studies at an institute located in the picturesque hill station.
Suu Kyi studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary school and graduated with a degree in politics from the Lady Shri Ram college in New Delhi.
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