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Furtive Obama trip

Posted On Tuesday, November 02, 2010 at 08:55:01 PM

Like Suresh Kalmadi the White House hopes all will be marvellous when it happens
Like Suresh Kalmadi the White House hopes all will be marvellous when it happens
With regard to US President Barack Obama’s India tour, it looks as though Washington has the sort of Monsoon Wedding last-minute event management that India displayed with just-in-time results on Delhi’s recent Commonwealth Games.

In a few days, he will land in India, but till a few days back strangely, no one involved could or was willing to say officially, or even semi-officially, where exactly he was going, nor more importantly precisely what he hoped to achieve.

The White House was  behaving so much like India’s procrastinating Commonwealth Games’ organising committee and its honcho Suresh Kalmadi.

US diplomats in New Delhi lacked details, especially on the substance of the trip, and was indeed in tune with lines taken by Suresh Kalmadi, the games chief organiser, that it will all be marvellous when it happens.

When details emerged about the itinerary, what most striking was the places liked to avoid. The Prez  is not going to Hyderabad or Bangalore, India’s high tech capitals that were eagerly visited by Clinton and Bush, for fear of being seen back home, admiring call centres and  the other information technology outsourcing centres that is stealing US jobs.

He isn’t going to Amritsar, as his advisers didn’t want him to look to Americans at home like a Muslim when he covered his head on a visit to the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the magnificent Golden Temple.

Obama has also reportedly decided against going to the India-Pakistan border at Wagah near Amritsar because of the risk that, in a speech on South Asian peace, he would have upset one or both of the two countries, probably over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

There are even reports that businessmen attending functions in Mumbai, where he starts his visit, are having to fill in questionnaires declaring their trade and investment links with the US. If true, that’s presumably so that those with sensitive businesses such as outsourcing can be kept away from the front line of  introductions.

http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/planning-of-obama%E2%80%99s-india-visit-looks-like


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