tomder55
Oct 4, 2014, 02:21 AM
Narendra Modi is the 15th and current Prime Minister of India. He is a rock star in popularity in his country and in the diaspora. This last week he was in the US where he spoke to the UN ;he sold out a packed Madison Square Garden ;and many Indian nationals watched his address on a big screen in Time Square ;or in their homes on cable.
Then he went to Washington where his reception by the emperor was curiously tepid bordering on rude . (ie they held dinners for him on days that he was fasting ) .The only world leader who has been treated worse during state visits has been Bibi .
We have enormous shared interests with India that need to be nurtured .We should by all accounts be natural allies. They are eager to form new alliances . Modi recently went to Japan for that very purpose. He also met with the Chinese and that did not go particularly well (something to do with a battalion sized contingent of Chinese troops camping out on Indian territory without permission).
But after 2 days of meetings there were no new initiatives agreed upon .
Of course Modi was elected with a mandate to do Thatcher like reforms on the failed socialist government he inherited . This puts him at odds with the emperor who sees his mandate as bring the US closer to the European socialist model .That could be a source of disagreement . However when one looks at the total global picture ;the US and India have more common interests.....of which containing China and combatting Jihadistan are two major ones . There are also business opportunities to pursue with the world's largest democracy. But it is the shared strategic interests that I think should be pursued . We are trying to assemble a coalition against the Islamic State ,and India just happens to have the 4th largest armed forces in the world . The emperor's failure to nurture the relationship with India that GW Bush initiated is just one more failure of his regime on the world stage .
Then he went to Washington where his reception by the emperor was curiously tepid bordering on rude . (ie they held dinners for him on days that he was fasting ) .The only world leader who has been treated worse during state visits has been Bibi .
We have enormous shared interests with India that need to be nurtured .We should by all accounts be natural allies. They are eager to form new alliances . Modi recently went to Japan for that very purpose. He also met with the Chinese and that did not go particularly well (something to do with a battalion sized contingent of Chinese troops camping out on Indian territory without permission).
But after 2 days of meetings there were no new initiatives agreed upon .
Of course Modi was elected with a mandate to do Thatcher like reforms on the failed socialist government he inherited . This puts him at odds with the emperor who sees his mandate as bring the US closer to the European socialist model .That could be a source of disagreement . However when one looks at the total global picture ;the US and India have more common interests.....of which containing China and combatting Jihadistan are two major ones . There are also business opportunities to pursue with the world's largest democracy. But it is the shared strategic interests that I think should be pursued . We are trying to assemble a coalition against the Islamic State ,and India just happens to have the 4th largest armed forces in the world . The emperor's failure to nurture the relationship with India that GW Bush initiated is just one more failure of his regime on the world stage .