Hans Christian Andersen didn’t script President Obama’s visit to India, hence if Indians feel a little let down without ‘happily-ever-after’ tag line, it is understandable. I for one am relieved that the visit went off well.
Whether India did indeed charm the Obamas can only be known in the future, but there is no doubt that the Princess (rather the Queen) of the tale was the first lady. She has bowled us over. The pre-visit apprehension whether he is a ‘frog-or-a-Prince’ has been put to rest for now, by the President - India is relieved that he didn’t turn out to be a frog.
While all the media hoopla was about the words (‘P’ and ‘K’) and the seats (UNSC, NSG), for me the real essence of the visit was in the President’s admonishment that we are queasy about taking a position on some issues - like Myanmar and Iran. It is a fact that India would be expected and should be expected to take more coherent line on issues, with which we are uncomfortable. It is embarrassing that the President chose name these two and a relief that no one uttered the other ‘I’ and ‘P’ (Israel & Palestine) of the middle-east.
We are uneasy because our relationship with Iran and Myanmar have a direct impact on our security. With Iran it is energy security and it is the US (under previous administration, whether rightly or wrongly) who destroyed the alternate, Iraq, whose regime was more in tune to India’s needs and compulsions. With Myanmar, it is the US’s bogeyman China which is attempting its own encirclement of India and which we certainly need to counter.
After all, India was attacked and occupied from the very same country, Burma, during the WWII and two decades later was given a bloody nose by the other - China.
To give the President credit, he also qualified with ‘only you can decide where your (nation’s) critical interests lie’ and hence we should have no qualms if we have to support the Myanmar regime - security of India is more important that human rights in Myanmar.
The second was our PM’s rebuke to the effect that ‘he doesn’t claim to be any sort of expert on the economy of the US and would not dream of advising how to run it (economy)’. It was a stinging rebuke to Germany who have suddenly woken up to currency war and have decided to throw their lot with China. I thought I was the only one to catch it and ever regret not blogging about this yesterday evening. The NYT carried the article today about unexpected support from India for Fed Action. I can’t, don’t need to write anything more on that.
AOL had a social networking site ‘Bebo’ - an acronym for ‘Blog Early Blog Often’ - and today I fully understand what it means.
Ah well, no use crying over it ;-)
Whether India did indeed charm the Obamas can only be known in the future, but there is no doubt that the Princess (rather the Queen) of the tale was the first lady. She has bowled us over. The pre-visit apprehension whether he is a ‘frog-or-a-Prince’ has been put to rest for now, by the President - India is relieved that he didn’t turn out to be a frog.
While all the media hoopla was about the words (‘P’ and ‘K’) and the seats (UNSC, NSG), for me the real essence of the visit was in the President’s admonishment that we are queasy about taking a position on some issues - like Myanmar and Iran. It is a fact that India would be expected and should be expected to take more coherent line on issues, with which we are uncomfortable. It is embarrassing that the President chose name these two and a relief that no one uttered the other ‘I’ and ‘P’ (Israel & Palestine) of the middle-east.
We are uneasy because our relationship with Iran and Myanmar have a direct impact on our security. With Iran it is energy security and it is the US (under previous administration, whether rightly or wrongly) who destroyed the alternate, Iraq, whose regime was more in tune to India’s needs and compulsions. With Myanmar, it is the US’s bogeyman China which is attempting its own encirclement of India and which we certainly need to counter.
After all, India was attacked and occupied from the very same country, Burma, during the WWII and two decades later was given a bloody nose by the other - China.
To give the President credit, he also qualified with ‘only you can decide where your (nation’s) critical interests lie’ and hence we should have no qualms if we have to support the Myanmar regime - security of India is more important that human rights in Myanmar.
The second was our PM’s rebuke to the effect that ‘he doesn’t claim to be any sort of expert on the economy of the US and would not dream of advising how to run it (economy)’. It was a stinging rebuke to Germany who have suddenly woken up to currency war and have decided to throw their lot with China. I thought I was the only one to catch it and ever regret not blogging about this yesterday evening. The NYT carried the article today about unexpected support from India for Fed Action. I can’t, don’t need to write anything more on that.
AOL had a social networking site ‘Bebo’ - an acronym for ‘Blog Early Blog Often’ - and today I fully understand what it means.
Ah well, no use crying over it ;-)
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