Tag: India-US relations

Tune into the ‘MO-bama Show’ on radio

- by India Writes Network

From joint op-eds to ‘Chalein Saath Saath,’ the intricate symphony of the multi-hued India-US relations will add new notes in the joint radio address by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama. On the last day of his three-day visit to India, President Obama will join Mr Modi in the latter’s monthly radio oration entitled “Mann Ki Baat,” on state-run All India Radio January 27.
“This month’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ episode will be a special one, where our Republic Day guest @BarackObama & I will share our thoughts together,” Modi shared the news on the microblogging platform Twitter January 24. “I am eagerly looking forward to the special ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme with President @BarackObama, which will be aired on 27th January.”
The joint radio address with a visiting foreign leader is a first-ever such exercise and a communication coup of sorts – it underlines the new Indian prime minister’s grasp of the intermeshing of diplomacy and media in an image-driven world.
Both Modi and Obama are consummate orators, and have used diverse media tools to communicate with the classes and masses. Since taking charge of the world’s most populous democracy, Modi has hosted three monthly radio shows that began in October, talking on a range of issues, including his vision of India and the growing drug addiction among the Indian youth. Obama, on his part, makes a weekly radio address from the White House. In the US, the presidents have used radio to inform, inspire and preach.

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Breakthrough Diplomacy@India: What to expect in 2015

- by Manish Chand

Diplomacy is the art of the possible. If successful and effective diplomacy is about reigniting the spark in old relationships, winning new friends, breaking new grounds, and shaping the outcomes in the international arena to promote the country’s enlightened national interests and development, then the seven-month old Narendra Modi government scores high as it builds on the successes of 2014 and looks ahead to 2015 with “new vision and new vigour.” Breakthrough Diplomacy, as India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj writes in a prologue to the eponymous e-book published by India’s Ministry of External Affairs, is about melding ‘Diplomacy for Development’ as the overarching themes in India’s global engagements.
“2014 has truly been a Year of Breakthrough Diplomacy. India’s star is today shining ever brighter on the global firmament,” writes Swaraj.
Talking of breakthrough diplomacy, it’s time to unscramble the jargon and introduce some balance in diplomatic discourse and the unfolding possibilities in the coming months. For one thing, breakthroughs don’t happen every day or every year in diplomacy; the India-US nuclear deal was a breakthrough, but getting Obama to be the chief guest at the 2015 Republic Day celebrations is a diplomatic triumph, but not a breakthrough. To claim routine diplomatic successes as breakthroughs, therefore, would be misleading, and lowering the bar. For another thing, diplomatic breakthroughs presuppose a perceptible and substantive rise in a country’s comprehensive national power, economic and military strength as well as soft power.

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A New Model: How to advance trilateral China-India-US cooperation

- by India Writes Network

China and India are the world’s biggest developing countries and the US is the world’s biggest developed country. The combined GDP and population of these three countries form almost 40% of the global share. And they share the common mission of promoting global peace and development. The peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation between China, India and the US will not only benefit the 2.8 billion people of our three countries but will also have far-reaching impact on the world’s development.
As President Xi Jinping has said on relations between Beijing and Washington, “the vast Pacific Ocean has ample space to accommodate our two great nations.” And on the relations between Beijing and New Delhi, he has said: “If we speak with one voice, the whole world will listen.” As long as we collectively show enough foresight, courage and open-mindedness, China, India and the US can express similar understanding in three different languages of Chinese, Hindi and English, and can realise the trans-Pacific Ocean and trans-Indian Ocean cooperation in the 21st century, thus bringing the people of our three countries and even the entire world even greater prosperity. We can become the “ballast stone,” ensuring the peace and stability of the world, and the boosters of global economic growth.

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Indo-US détente: Beyond economics?

- by India Writes Network

While India and the US might achieve breakthroughs in the economic realm, the story of geopolitics seems to be more challenging.
The most important aspect of the relationship is the American recognition that India’s success and transformation towards a more prosperous society is in America’s interest, and India’s emergence as a major and prosperous power requires a closer relationship with the US both in the security and economic realms. As Senator McCain states, “Ultimately, this strategic partnership is about India and the US placing a long-term bet on one another – a bet that each of us should be confident can offer a big return.” The countries might have divergent perspectives, but their visions and commitment to a liberal international world order, and a rising Asia that is stable with no single power exercising disproportionate influence, do not conflict. This should be the dominant idea taking the relationship forward, as it did during the civil nuclear agreement, after which this central story line got blurred.

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India, US open a new bright chapter: Focus on knowledge partnership, security cooperation

- by Manish Chand

India and the US, the world’s oldest and most populous democracies, have put the recent past of drift and plateauing behind to open a new bright chapter in their relationship by launching a new investment initiative to multiply their trade five-fold, enhancing security cooperation and expanding the global compass of their strategic partnership from Afghanistan to Africa.
Piercing through the thicket of diplomatic clichés, the US pitched itself as a lead partner in India’s quest for smart cities and world class infrastructure.
India’s Prime Minister Narandra Modi and US President Barack Obama held all-encompassing talks for more than an hour and a half in Washington DC September 30, with the US shedding its ambivalence and pledging unstinting support for “India’s rise as a responsible, influential world power.”
The big takeaway from the first summit meeting between the leaders of the world’s largest democracies was the forceful assertion on the part of the two leaders to leave the recent past of drifting firmly behind and forge a more vibrant and enduring partnership pivoted around a transformative knowledge partnership and deploying cutting-edge technologies to address all-too-real problems facing millions of people cutting across the rural-urban divide.

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Scripting anew: Obama, Modi co-author vision article on India-US ties in US daily

- by Manish Chand

Chalein Saath, Saath: forward we go together.” This emerging India-US bonding, with its promise of working together on a host of bilateral and global issues, will be reflected in a joint op-ed article co-authored by US President Barack Obama and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The article, which was approved only hours before the two leaders sat down for an informal dinner at the White House, will be published in a leading American daily, likely to be the Washington Post.

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