'Flattering press, nice photos, no major gaffes.' 'Both sides will be very happy as they are clearly measuring 'success' by a different yardstick than the world used in the past.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Joe Biden at the White House on Friday in his first bilateral meeting with the US president during which the two leaders are expected to discuss a wide range of priority issues, including combating Covid-19, climate change, economic cooperation as well as Afghanistan.
Singh, in his address to the Indian-American community in San Francisco, also sent a subtle message to the United States that New Delhi does not believe in a diplomacy of 'zero-sum game' and its relationship with one country cannot be at the expense of the other.
Pakistan is a "haven" for several Islamist terror groups and successive Pakistani governments are widely believed to have supported some outfits as proxies in the country's conflicts with its neighbours including India, a US Congressional research report has said.
The gates of NRG Stadium will open at 6 am to accommodate and seat 50,000 people by 9 am, after which cultural programme will begin and continue till 10:30 am, and will be broadcast live in Hindi, English and Spanish languages followed by the address of the two leaders.
Given the impact Covid-19 pandemic had over the world economy, analysts expect global central banks, especially the US Fed, to keep the liquidity tap open, which, in turn, is likely to keep the equity markets, especially those in the emerging markets, buoyant.
"The recent election in Pakistan, as well as the normalising of US-Pakistan relations, are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the regularising of India-Pakistan relations," noted American scholar Stephen P Cohen has said.
Indian and US experts will meet in July this year to discuss ways to ease Washington's sanctions on export of dual use goods and technologies to New Delhi.\n\n
The reduction of tension on the Chinese border may have reduced the urgency of a Biden-Modi meeting, but the sooner Modi starts a bromance with Biden the better as he had done with Obama and Trump, suggests Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
World leaders from across the political spectrum congratulated Joe Biden who became the president-elect of the United States, and Kamala Harris who made history as the first female to serve as the vice president.
Trump's visit symbolised heightened partisanship and a return to chemistry between leaders defining bilateral ties, notes Kashish Parpiani.
Many of the stories, the pictures going out of India worldwide lately with these provocative processions, taunting of Muslims, bulldozers targeting mostly their properties, the sweeping 'othering' of a community of 200 million are painting the front pages and TV screens in the democratic world. That is where most of the friends we covet lie. Soon enough, these will also make our vital friends among the Muslim nations, from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, uneasy. The best time for course correction is now, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'If the Americans believed that India is as strong as China or Russia, would they have shown this scant respect for us,' asks Tarun Vijay, MP. 'An economically strong and militarily powerful India would never have had this experience. Not just the Americans, everyone in this world respects might. China receives respect, India gets the law book.'
The main elements of the programme are bilateral meetings with the US leadership, participation in the Quad Leaders' Summit, address at the UN General Assembly and business interactions.
'There is little appetite in the Democratic foreign policy establishment to pick a fight with India.'
"We will support nothing with India in the NSG that is in contradiction to the Hyde Act. It will have to be completely consistent with the obligations of the Hyde Act," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Panel.
The elephant in the room will permeate the conversations, predicts Rup Narayan Das.
Third time lucky is an apt phrase to describe the remarkable rise of Joe Biden, a veteran in US politics for around five decades, from being one of the youngest senators in history to the oldest American president-to-be.
The prime minister and president stated their intention to expand defence co-operation to bolster national, regional and global security.
Indian Ambassador to the US, Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the United States, today, is not only India's largest trading partner, but most importantly, the two countries enjoys excellent people-to-people contact.
"He (Biden) is very much part of this period when Indo-American relations underwent a radical transformation, which I reasonably date back to (Bill) Clinton's visit," Jaishankar said.
Decades after he received a letter from someone by the last name of Biden from Mumbai, soon after becoming a senator, Biden learned that his 'great, great, great, great, great grandfather' had worked in the East India Company. "There are five Bidens in Mumbai, India," Biden, then Vice President, told a Washington audience in 2015 at an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of India-US civil nuclear deal.
'The diplomat's arrest has led to a major diplomatic spat, the likes of which I have not seen in my nearly three decades of covering the US-India relationship, says Aziz Haniffa. 'The knee-jerk reaction by the powers-that-be in Delhi was myopic to say the least.'
The official told the reporters during a conference call on Friday, ahead of the next week's 2+2 India-US Ministerial in New Delhi, that the Trump administration was providing support to India through defence sales, joint military exercises and information sharing.
At the meeting of the 160-member World Trade Organisation in Geneva on Friday, India demanded a halt to the trade facilitation timetable till a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security is found.
'If there were no Ahmedabad programme -- no flashy town hall event in a huge cricket stadium with thousands cheering him on -- then Trump may well have decided not to go to India.'
The bilateral and Quad summits, in which Prime Minister Modi played a significant role, has sent the right message to China, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The November 3 presidential poll is an "election of a lifetime" for it being held amid a pandemic and seeing the "highest participation" of India-Americans, according to eminent community leader Swadesh Chatterjee.
The new framework of the ministerial dialogue was initiated in order to provide a forward-looking vision for the strategic partnership between the two countries.
Prime Ministers Modi and Abe enjoyed a close and empathetic relationship and this certainly gave a sustained momentum to the India-Japan strategic partnership. It is necessary for India to reach out and engage with his successor as early as possible, advises former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
He had come in search of jobs in America to rescue his presidency and India failed him in more ways than one, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The presidential dreams that the veteran leader from Delaware had harboured since childhood seemed all but over for a third time until he won South Carolina's Democratic Party primary on February 29 last year, forcing most rivals out of the race and making one of the most dramatic comebacks in American political history.
Modi may take satisfaction from his display of considerable political skill in managing a mercurial, temperamental and unpredictable US president and nudging him into uncharacteristic restraint and even carefully orchestrated remarks. This personal chemistry will come in handy if Trump returns as president in the November elections, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Who knows, the moment of truth in Ladakh may also augur for a giant leap toward boundary settlement with China in the fulness of time. The news that the special representatives of the two countries are planning to meet gives a positive signal, suggests Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The target of $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2020 is doable, feels Anand Sharma.
It is understood that India's border row with China figured in the talks between Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale though there was no mention of it in the press statements issued by the two sides.
The 77-year-old former US vice president on Friday night took his tally of pledged delegates over the halfway mark of 1,991 from a total of 3,979, thus becoming eligible to earn the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
US President Barack Obama on Monday announced investments and loans worth $4 billion by American agencies as part of measures to bolster trade with India.
'The challenge before the two countries is to turn the peak into a plateau and enter an irreversible phase of cooperation,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
India, Jaishankar said, is a "prisoner of its past image" and must get over it.
