Thaindian News

Washington, Nov.25 (ANI): The air of excitement and anticipationprevailing ahead of the White House State Dinner hosted by PresidentBarack Obama and US First Lady Michelle Obama for visiting IndianPrime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur wasdampened by a blanket ban on televison channels and crew.

Television channel anchors here were laughing in their bulletins aboutthe whole secrecy element surrounding the event and what could havethe reasons for keeping the media out.

Only celebrity news anchors like Katie Couric of CBS, Fareed Zakariaof Newsweek and CNN, Brian Williams of NBC and Sanjay Gupta of CNNmade the cut for the high-powered do, but their crews were notallowed.

Earlier, the White House released the list of expected guests forTuesday night’s state dinner.

According to the Washington Post, among the expected guests at thedinner would be Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, famedHollywood director Steven Speilberg, Gayle King, Dr.Sanjay Gupta andDavid Geffen.

Among the others that were expected to attend the White House veggiegarden spoils hosted by President Barack Obama and First Lady MichelleObama for Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister andhis wife Gursharan Kaur, were Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. andhis wife Dr. Jill Biden Congressman Gary Ackerman, Indian-Americanhotelier Sant Singh Chatwal, Deputy Chairman of the Indian PlanningCommission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, David Axelrod and his wife SusanAxelrod, Congressman Howard Berman and his wife Jane Berman, Robert OBlake, Jr., Assistant Secretaryof State for South and Central AsianAffairs, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, John Brennan, Assistant tothe President for Homeland Security and Deputy National SecurityAdvisor for Counter-terrorism, Homeland Security Council.

William Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, General James ECartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Senator BobCasey, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Senator Satveer Chaudhry, EnergySecretary Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, SenatorSwati Dandekar, Senator Chris Dodd, White House Chief of Staff RahmEmanuel, New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman, Dr. Ashok SGanguly, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Michigan GovernorJennifer Granholm, Attorney General Eric Holder, Senator Daniel Inouyeof Hawaii, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, National Security AdviserGeneral James Jones, Senator John Kerry, Indian External AffairsMinister S.M. Krishna, Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri, USCommerce Secretary Gary Locke etc, were also expected to attend.

Kiran Mazumda-Shaw, Congressman Jim McDermott, Indian businessmanSunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff AdmiralMichael Mullen, Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, Indian NationalSecurity Adviser M.K. Narayanan, USIBC president and PepisicoChairperson Indra Nooyi, Massachussets Governor Deval Patrick, Houseof Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, telecommunications and IThoncho Sam Pitroda and Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao were alsoto attend.(ANI)