Modi works economy to pull U.S. to India’s side
Photo credit Twitter @MEA
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, June 22: U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They will face elections next year.
Biden will be heading into election with recession knocking at the door of the U.S. Modi feverishly campaigned for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Karnataka Assembly election, but his party faired miserably against the main Opposition party Congress.
Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the past few months have been stressing on jobs being created by the Indian companies in the U.S. Record deals have been signed by the Indian airlines to buy passenger aircrafts. Indian IT firms have heavily invested, to the tune of over $40 billion in the U.S. to create local jobs.
On top of that General Electric signed a deal with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for jet engines to be possibly produced in India, while several of them are in use in the initial series of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) of India. From semi-conductor to telecommunications, and from defence to space technology, a long and wide array of cooperation framework has been inked by India and the U.S. during the state visit of Modi.
During the tenure of the UPA government in its first term with Manmohan Singh as the prime minister, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was once visiting the U.S. “While Mukherjee had just checked into his hotel, the phone rang. It was Hillary Clinton on the other side. She was the Secretary of the State. She checked on Mukherjee if India would sooner allow foreign direct investment in retail,” recalled a former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, who sought to argue that economic interest comes first for the U.S. in bilateral relations.
Mukherjee, true to his wont, shot back, saying that he was in the U.S. on a personal visit and he certainly didn’t wish to discuss the government issues.
“Our trade relations are booming, crossing $190 billion in the trade. Indian Airlines decision to buy Boeing aircrafts will create a million jobs across 44 states in the U.S. Over $2 billion of Indian investment is coming to South Colorado,” said Biden during the joint press conference with Modi on Thursday after their bilateral meeting.
With the Chinese economy gasping for breath, the U.S. is seemingly hoping to ride the Indian economy to gain a fresh market for its technology-driven economy, which creates high paying jobs locally. India on the other hand gains investments and accelerated access to technology to push some of the projects such as the LCA and semiconductor on the fast lane.
Modi on the hand also got a better show of his foreign policy to address to the domestic constituency to shore up his image ahead of key elections in a few months which will set up the mood for the general elections next year.
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