'Obama probably thinks, "He is quite a guy!" Americans on Capitol Hill think, "He has guts. He is a big player".' An Indian official explains the importance of the Modi visit to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Narendra Modi's positive engagement with Barack Obama has well and truly washed away the doubts and slights of the past.
The joint statement issued after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama's first-ever summit is high on intent and ambition. Notably missing from the statement is India's refusal to be America's partner in its war against ISIS.
'There was never really a doubt, but now it can be conclusively stated that the prime minister has unusual mental and physical stamina,' says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com who is covering Narendra Modi's visit to the United States.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a strict religious fast, has had several high profile engagements on the second day of his United States visit.
10 takeaways from the prime minister's UN speech.
Barack Obama is expected to ask for India's support to create a global coalition against ISIS when he meets Narendra Modi on Monday. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reports from New York.
Weakened by two fierce political opponents and the army in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's United Nations speech was to address his domestic audience.
'It will be like a never-before-visit by an Indian prime minister to America,' a senior diplomat told Rediff.com
'Only he can bring change in India that all of us have been dreaming of since we saw America for the first time when our plane touched down at JFK airport.' Narendra Modi's friends in New York and New Jersey travel down memory lane and remember a simple man with great ambition. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com tracks down the Modi bhakts, who knew since his first visit in 1993 that he was destined for bigger things.
The US State Department and other lobbies who denied Modi a visa when he was chief minister of Gujarat, says one organiser of the Madison Square Garden event, will get a clear idea of what kind of "force" is behind Modi in America. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com meets the people behind the event in New York and finds out what's in store for Sunday's show.
The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, an NGO in the heart of Kolkata's red light district, has decided to celebrate Durga Puja, reports Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.Speaking to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com, the sex workers say that they want to get rid of ostracisation and be allowed to celebrate Durga Puja just as others do.
For the last 40 years, Modi fasts during Navratras devoted to Ma Amba. He drinks lukewarm water and sometime he eats a fruit a day.
'It's the least I could do,' says Professor Soumitra Basu, head of the Philosophy department at Jadavpur University, who resigned to protest against the police violence last week.
History of sorts was created in Kolkata when about 60,000 people took to the streets of the West Bengal capital on Saturday demanding resignation of Jadavpur University vice-chancellor even as West Bengal Governor K N Tripathi intervened to end the four-day old stalemate in the prestigious educational institution.
'There is no discipline here -- only autocracy. The state is not governed by any democratic ideology. Democracy has ceased to exist here.'
'A historic reception of this size is an extraordinary statement for the broad appeal of such a dynamic, action-oriented, people-first leader,' says Dr Bharat Barai.
Once again an Indian prime minister has realised that with Pakistan and China, things will not move as he wishes.
'He also presented a facsimile of the scroll that was given to Gandhiji in Johannesburg in 1908 by the Chinese community there. I think that was quite a thoughtful gift,' Sabarmati Ashram Director Tridip Suhrud tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
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