'Modi's visit gave opportunity to assess Indo-US partnership': Obama administration

'Modi's visit gave opportunity to assess Indo-US partnership': Obama administration

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US provided an "important opportunity" to assess how the Indo-US partnership can help address global challenges and unleash opportunity in the economic and trade space, a topObama administration official said.

"There was a tremendous amount of support and goodwill and his words resonated in many many different audiences around town," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal toldPTI on the sidelines of an event here on Tuesday.

Following Modi's visit to Washington from June 6-8, Biswal had described the vision laid out by the Indian leader during his address to the US Congress as the 'Modi Doctrine'.

Biswal, in the city to speak at the launch of the Sri Lanka Policy Forum, saidModi doctrine was "a way of framing what I thought was an important vision" that the Prime Minister put forward in his speech to the US Congress.

"It's a recognition that both President (Barack) Obama and Prime Minister Modi said that we are each other's best partners in an important defining relationship, not only because of what wecan do for our own peoples through our partnership but because of the way we can really advance global concerns, address challenges and create betterment around the world."

She said Modi's visit was an "important opportunity" to talk about that kind of partnership and to best look at the "challenges that we see", including the challenges across the Indo-Pacific, climate change and "how we can move together to address them as well as unleash opportunity on the economic and trade space and in many other endeavors between our two countries."

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Terror being 'incubated' in India's neighbourhood

Terror being 'incubated' in India's neighbourhood

With Pakistan obviously in mind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said terrorism was being “incubated in India’s neighbourhood” and pressed for action without making any distinction against groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Taliban and ISIS who share the “same philosophy of hate, murder and killings”.

In his address to the joint sitting of US Congress here, he said terrorism has to be fought with “one voice” as he commended the American Parliament for sending out a clear message by refusing to “reward” those who preach and practice terrorism for political gains, an apparent reference to the blocking of sale of 8 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

In the course of his 45-minute speech, he covered all major aspects of the growing relationship between India and the US, particularly strategic ties and civil nuclear cooperation, and emphasised that the two countries should leave “constraints of the past” behind as the “foundations of the future are firmly in place”.

“India lives as one; India grows as one and India celebrates as one,” Modi said. “For my government, the Constitution is its real holy book. And, in that holy book, freedom of faith, speech and franchise, and equality of all citizens, regardless of background, are enshrined as fundamental rights.”

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Modi, Obama have forged close working relationship: think-tank

Modi, Obama have forged close working relationship: think-tank

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone from somebody who was basically a "pariah" to someone who is now going to be celebrated in the course of just two years, a top American think-tank has said ahead of his meeting with US PresidentBarack Obama at the White House next week.

"This would probably be the Prime Minister's seventh meeting with the President since he took office which probably is a record both for Modi and for the President with respect to meeting a head of government from a country which is not a formal ally of the United States," Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace said yesterday.

"This speaks to the personal relationship that the two have developed over the last two years and also the surprising quality of it, given the history that Modi had with the United States," Tellis said ahead of the Obama-Modi meeting on June 7 at the White House.

During his US visit, the Prime Minister will also address a joint meeting of the US Congress on June 8.

"The close personal relationship that has now developed between Modi and Obama is one of the surprises of the last two years," Tellis said.

Echoing Tellis, Milan Vaishnav of Carnegie said the personal transformation that Modi has undergone is nothing short of remarkable.

"In the course of just two years, Modi has gone from just who could not step foot on American soil as a legal matter to addressing a joint meeting of the US Congress. He has gone from somebody who was basically a pariah to someone who is now going to be celebrated by Washington.Read more.