'We are two countries that, as Swami Vivekananda said in Chicago more than a century ago, have sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on Earth.' 'People are watching to wait and see if this Modi moment is going to be the moment when the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy finally capitalise on the full, inherent potential of this relationship.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from the State Department's lunch for Prime Minister Modi.
'Modi is a master of convergence. By his ability to converge and add new features to a non-star idea, he is able to sell it. Like how he has turned Kutch into a tourist destination by selling the salt desert of the Rann as a flat snow desert of the night and roping in Amitabh Bachchan to sell it. In one stroke this has ensured economic returns to the people and on the other hand it has taken care of the national security angle in the sense that the border population in the Rann, which is almost entirely Muslim, is feeling better as now they are much more connected with the mainstream.' Ahead of the launch of his book on the much-debated Modi model of governance, journalist Uday Mahurkar speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, speaks about a range of issues ranging from inflation, to how Goods and Services Tax and land acquisition bills can help India hit double digit growth, and her impressions about economic growth in the last one year after Narendra Modi took over as India's Prime Minister.
