NEW DELHI (TIP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reach Ottawa on April 14, ending a 42-year-long hiatus in bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister to Canada.

Indira Gandhi was the last Indian prime minister to travel to Canada on a bilateral visit in June 1973.

Manmohan Singh, who held the office for 10 years since 2004, had also traveled to Canada in 2010, but to attend the G-20 summit in Toronto and not for a bilateral visit.

Ever since he took over as the prime minister on May 26 last year, Modi has traveled to several countries for bilateral visits which were not on the agenda of his predecessors for a long period of time.

His tour to Nepal in August 2014 was the first bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. I K Gujral was the last prime minister to embark on a bilateral visit to Nepal in June 1997.

Modi was the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia in 28 years since Rajiv Gandhi did so in 1986. His visit to Fiji, too, was the second by an Indian prime minister after Indira Gandhi’s visit to the island nation in 1981.

His recent visit to Seychelles was also the first by a prime minister since 1981, when Indira Gandhi had visited the country.

Syed Akbaruddin, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said that Modi would travel to Canada from April 14 to 16 – after visiting France and Germany from April 9 to 13.

Apart from meeting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Modi will address a conclave of Indian and Indian-origin people living in Canada, he said.