Thane girl to attend Donald Trump's inaugural in Washington

Thane: A teenaged girl from this Maharashtra city is off to Washington to attend the new US President Donald Trump`s inaugural on Friday and attend a five-day US Presidential Inauguration Leadership Summit.

Oishika Neogi, 17, who is a first-year BA student of Symbiosis National University, Pune, will represent India at the global summit of youngsters and attend the inaugural.

"I am so excited by this rare opportunity that I couldn`t sleep for the past few nights," an excited Oishika told IANS while on way to catch her flight at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai on Tuesday evening.

Among the other invitees expected for the Trump inaugural are the world`s youngest Nobel Peace laureate, Pakistani girl education activist Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin, besides prominent students and youths from all over the world.

Oishika, along with delegates from all other countries, will make presentations at various conferences from January 18 to 22, speaking about how the new Trump administratio would affect their individual countries.

She plans to attend a special gala evening for delegates on January 21 before travelling to New York and returning home by the month-end -- to prepare for another youth conference in China next June.

The Kolkata-born Oishika got the opportunity to attend the inagural after winning a contest at the Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC) in the US in June 2015, and following her excellent performance at the Harvard Model United Nations competition in Hyderabad.

"The UN Model debates were specially conducted for students interested in international relations to expose them to a global audience. The Model United Nations events are designed for this," she said.

Until 2016, she studied at Mumbai`s B.K. Gadia A Level Junior College, run by the D.G. Khetan International School, in Malad suburb. It conducts a Mock UN Debate annually which Neogi trumped, and then excelled at the Hyderabad event before travelling to Washington DC and New York that year for the GYLC.

On her future plans, Oishika said she wants to become a television media professional and cover the United Nations sometime, which she considers as "a dream assignment".

Besides pursuing undergrad studies and quenching her thirst for knowledge about global affairs, she is training in western dancing and theatre, and does painting. She also loves to gorge alike on continental and spicy Indian cuisine.

She lives with her mother Chumki Neogi in Thane`s Mira Road suburb, adjacent to Mumbai.