Those in the know at Rashtrapati Bhavan will tell you President Mukherjee used to hate travelling abroad. He specifically disliked ceremonial visits, because he believed the role of the President of India, especially during foreign visits, should be in the national interest—proactive and dialogue-driven, while keeping the country’s geopolitical and economic priorities in mind.

Ahead of his visit to China—from May 14 to 16—India’s social-media friendly Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the Chinese social media platform Weibo to connect with Chinese citizens. (Hello China! Looking forward to interacting with Chinese friends through Weibo)”, Prime Minister said through his social media account.

Heading home from a weeklong visit to the U.S., Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stopped off Saturday morning for a nostalgic tour of USC, where he was a student in the 1970s. The brief visit to USC was Abe’s final event in the United States before he headed to Los Angeles International Airport, after a week of diplomacy and economic discussions.

Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is in the U.S. this week for a tightly packed visit that will focus largely on the strong ties between the U.S. and its closest Asian ally. (...)This visit should help with the latter goal as Abe will have a summit with Obama and a state dinner at the White House with 300 guests. Image is important to the Abe administration, and it'll be on display during this U.S. visit, says Shihoko Goto, an Asia specialist with the Woodrow Wilson Center. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will do a repeat of his Madison Square Garden act during his next month's visit to China that will make him the first Indian leader to address the communist nation's burgeoning Indian community, whose numbers have swelled to 45,000.