President Obama is hosting Indian Prime Minister Singh and his wife at the first White House State Dinner of his Presidency tonight.
It is appropriate that our government is hosting the leader of the largest democracy in the world, a country that is part of the War on Terror, and has suffered from terrorist attacks on a regular basis, including last year’s tragic events in Mumbai.
Despite the many problems India has had since its independence in 1947, it is certainly a model of what we would love to see occurring elsewhere in the world: a move away from dictatorship and demagoguery so common in the so called Third World nations.
India has come a long way, and is now seen as one of the growth nations which will have a great impact on the future of the 21st century.
So promoting closer ties is very important, a complete reversal from what happened during the war of India and Bangladesh against Pakistan in 1971, when the Nixon Administration regrettably backed Pakistan, a move detrimental to close Indian-US relations for a generation.
Now the future of Indian-US diplomacy looks assured, thanks to the efforts of President Obama!
Yes, Obama is making strides with a friendly neighbor, India. However, America’s friendship with India has been growing for years. Micro-soft and many other high tech companies have been establishing relations, on an economic level, with India, thus paving the way for political ties.
Unfortunately, many of American jobs have been lost or out sorted to India. I do not begrudge any one of getting ahead but not at the stake of American jobs. In fact, many American’ jobs that have went to India have been lost due to high corporate taxes over the years and too much government relegation.
But hats off to Obama.
James, I don’t think the solution to a healthy global economy is lower taxes and deregulation. Rather, shouldn’t we be encouraging other nations to increase wages and regulate industry to control emissions, etc.? US corporations go overseas not because they’re in danger of going out of business (in some cases profits and executive salaries are enormous), but because it’s cheaper to do business there and they can get away with a lot more. The answer just might be to discourage greed on a worldwide basis.