The friendship shared by India and the US is the culmination of an effort that began with Clinton and was sustained by Bush before the baton passed to Obama.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s voice takes on a honeyed tone every time he utters his “good friend’’ Barack Obama’s name. He calls the outgoing president Barack, showing scant regard for protocol and convention.
The Modi-Obama bromance has been the public face of India-US ties in recent times. US Ambassador to India Richard Verma described the last two years as the best in bilateral relations. In a recent communique, he highlighted a ten-day period in August 2016 during which Obama and Modi met twice, first at the G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China, and then in Laos at the East Asia Summit, bringing their official meeting count up to eight. At the same time, American Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Commerce Penny Sue Pritzker were in Delhi for the second annual strategic and commercial dialogue and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was in Washington, DC, meeting with Defence Secretary Ash Carter to finalise a long-pending logistics agreement.
The quickly-forged-and-as-quickly-tested personal rapport between the two leaders (the Paris climate deal deadlock was resolved when Obama phoned Modi) lent a much needed personal touch to dealings that are complex and take a lot of deliberation before reaching the table for signatures.
This story is from the January 15, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January 15, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Divides And Dividends
Contrasting narratives on the scrapping of Article 370 define the elections in Jammu and Kashmir
Playing it cool
Everybody knows what 420 means in the Indian context. But in American parlance it is something very different: four-twenty or 4/20 or April 20 denotes cannabis celebration; its cultural references are rooted in the hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
The heroine's new clothes
Who else but Sanjay Leela Bhansali could bring on a wardrobe reset like the one in his just-dropped period piece—an eight-part Netflix series called Heeramandi?
AI & I
Through her book Code Dependent—shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction—Madhumita Murgia gives voice to the voiceless multitudes impacted by artificial intelligence
Untold tales from war
Camouflaged is a collection of 10 deeply researched stories, ranging from the world wars to the 26/11 terror attacks
Hair force
Sheetal Mallar, in her photobook Braided, uses hair as a metaphor to tell a story that is personal yet universal
THE WHITE TIGER GAVE ME CONFIDENCE IN MY ABILITIES
The first time Adarsh Gourav made an impression was in Ramin Bahrani's 2021 film The White Tiger, a gripping adaptation of Aravind Adiga's Booker-winning novel.
The art of political protest
The past doesn’t always remain in the past. Sometimes, it emerges in the present, reminding us about the universality and repetitiveness of the human experience. Berlin’s George Grosz Museum, a tiny gem, is a startling reminder that modern political and social ills are not modern. Grosz lived through World Wars I and II, shining a torch into the heart of darkness in high-ranking men and women—who were complicit in the collapse of the world as they knew it.
REFUELLING DYING SATELLITES
A Chennai company is making waves in the world of space tech startups
DIVERSITY IN UNITY
THE SOUTH ASIAN COMMUNITY IN THE US HAS SEVERAL THINGS IN COMMON, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS, THERE ARE WIDELY DIFFERING OPINIONS AND FEELINGS