As US President Barack Obama gets ready to host Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House for the second time in as many years, a New York Times report describes the bond between the two as an "unlikely friendship".
"There are few relationships between Obama and another world leader more unlikely than the one he has with Modi," The New York Times said ahead of what will be the seventh meeting between Modi and the US president.
COMMON CAUSE
The report said the two largest democracies in the world have "compelling reasons" to find common cause. For example, the US is encouraging India's rise as a regional giant for Obama's so-called "pivot to Asia" policy and counter China's global economic and military superpower ambitions.
For India, the US bond, according to the Times, is needed to "accelerate its economy with an injection of investment from American companies". But the relationship between Modi and Obama is still "unlikely".
The Times said Obama has made the protection of minorities a central pillar of his life because he believes that "criticism and dissent are core tenets of democracy".
"But Modi, by contrast, spent much of his life rising through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing paramilitary organisation that campaigns forcefully for India's Hindu majority," it said, recalling the Gujarat religious riots that saw some 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, killed in 2002 when Modi was the chief minister of the western Indian state.
Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in
"There are few relationships between Obama and another world leader more unlikely than the one he has with Modi," The New York Times said ahead of what will be the seventh meeting between Modi and the US president.
COMMON CAUSE
The report said the two largest democracies in the world have "compelling reasons" to find common cause. For example, the US is encouraging India's rise as a regional giant for Obama's so-called "pivot to Asia" policy and counter China's global economic and military superpower ambitions.
For India, the US bond, according to the Times, is needed to "accelerate its economy with an injection of investment from American companies". But the relationship between Modi and Obama is still "unlikely".
The Times said Obama has made the protection of minorities a central pillar of his life because he believes that "criticism and dissent are core tenets of democracy".
"But Modi, by contrast, spent much of his life rising through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing paramilitary organisation that campaigns forcefully for India's Hindu majority," it said, recalling the Gujarat religious riots that saw some 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, killed in 2002 when Modi was the chief minister of the western Indian state.
Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in
