honour and visit Rajghat with many speculating that Mr. Modi would accompany him there, just as President Obama accompanied Mr. Modi to the Martin Luther King memorial when he was in Washington last year. Later, both leaders will have a bilateral meeting where they are expected to review the entire gamut of the relationship and also touch upon regional and international developments. That evening he is expected to attend President Pranab Mukherjee’s official banquet.”
According to “The Hindu,” the US has given a list of 17 projects to the Indian side for consideration under the Defence Technology Trade Initiative, while on the front of climate change, both New Delhi and Washington DC are likely to give a major push for “renewable energy with the US set to offer a grant for India to purchase energy efficient technologies.”
This is how the esteemed American magazine “Time” sees Obama’s visit: “Tanks, missiles and thousands of soldiers, along with elaborate floats representing the country’s states, roll down Rajpath, the Indian capital’s broadest avenue, to commemorate the milestone in a grand, Soviet-style parade. Which is why, this year, when US President Barack Obama takes his place next to India’s leaders to witness the pageantry, there will be no mistaking the political symbolism.”
The “Time magazine further writes: “It will also underscore a rapid shift in U.S.-India ties, which descended into an angry diplomatic row involving Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in New York City, in late 2013. Accused of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper, Khobragade was handcuffed and strip-searched by US marshals, triggering furious protests from New Delhi. India retaliated by yanking away various privileges enjoyed by American diplomats and removing security barriers from around the US embassy in New Delhi’s diplomatic quarter.”The US magazine also stated that following the bloody sectarian rioting in the then Narendra Modi-governed Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, the US had blocked the Indian leader from visiting New York. “But all was forgotten in September, when the newly installed Prime Minister Modi visited Washington at the invitation of the American President,” it views.