n November 2010, President Obama visited India for three days. In addition to meeting with top Indian business leaders and announcing deals between the two countries worth more than $10 billion, the president declared on several occasions that the US and India’s would be the “defining partnership of the twenty-first century.” Afterward, Obama flew straight […]
In the run-up to the U.S presidential polls, when bilateral diplomatic activity was expected to taper off, South Block logged as many as a dozen delegations from Washington between September 25 and end-October. Four of these were headed by cabinet minister-level officials. Even just a couple of days before the Americans went to the polls, […]
After years of “estrangement,” the United States and India have transformed their relationship at a breathtaking pace since 1998, and grown it into a wide-ranging strategic partnership. The speed and scope of these changes initially led to highly positive reviews of India and its potential contributions to American interests by U.S. commentators, gushing with praise […]
Indeed, enthusiasm for India in Washington may wax or wane over the next four years, but arguably this will depend less on who occupies the White House than on who occupies the prime minister’s residence at 7 Race Course Road. Over the past two years, faced with a global slowdown and a lack of reforms, […]
As in the Cold War, so in the current power play between the United States and China, the rest of Asia will simply not submit itself to the discipline of a bipolar framework. Asia will actively shape and be shaped by the emerging strategic dynamic between Washington and Beijing. Asia is home to many large […]
India’s recent fall from macroeconomic grace is a lamentable turn of events. After many years of outperformance, GDP growth has slowed sharply. Annual output will most likely rise by less than 5% this year, down from 6.8% in 2011 and 10.1% in 2010. Reform has stalled amid profound political paralysis. All of the major emerging […]
Sitting in the study of the prime ministerial bungalow in New Delhi, surrounded by manicured lawns and palm trees, Indian leader Manmohan Singh and his soon-to-be finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram pored over plans late into the evening to stem a growing sense of crisis. Singh, the 80-year-old soft-spoken architect of the country’s economic opening two […]
AS WITH comedy, timing matters when delivering a political punchline. On October 28th India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, at last reshuffled his cabinet. It was long overdue, made necessary by the departure in September of a coalition ally, and more generally by the growing sense, over several months, of a government adrift: dominated by aged […]
The southern Indian city of Hyderabad is home to the 500-year-old Chilkur Balaji Temple, which features a statue of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu deity. The monument has become a magnet for workers such as Ravi Shanker, who seek divine help in securing a work permit from Washington, D.C. Shanker, who lives in Bangalore, works for […]
Salman Khurshid was India‘s new external affairs minister as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday effected a major revamp of his council of ministers, inducting 22 faces, including seven of cabinet rank, in what is said to be the last major ministerial shuffle before the 2014 general elections. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi did not join […]
looking beyond borders 