Debarth's Den

Any visit by a president of the United States to India is a cause for great expectation and fanfare within the echelons of Indian politics and its polity, and Obama’s upcoming visit is expected to create no less an effect. However, India’s expectations of support and empathy from the US with regard to its perennial conflicts with Pakistan have always fallen flat, insofar that America cannot afford to ingratiate India at the expense of Pakistan, while the reverse may be true to some extent. The ascent of Obama to the highest post in the US has so far not augured very favorably for India, in that Obama’s stance towards the Indo-US nuclear deal and the offshoring of US jobs to Indian shores has not been particularly agreeable. These fears find further confirmation in the diplomatic jugglery resorted to by the US High Commissioner in India, Mr Tim Roemer, when, in a recent interview to Times Now TV channel, he was quizzed by new journalist Arnab Goswami about the prospects of US president

India has long been struggling to rid itself of the seemingly inextricable images of filth, dirt and corruption that have clung to it like a leeches ever since it embarked upon a journey of reinventing itself on its own post independence. The last two decades have seen the Indian psyche undergoing a pleasant change with governments, corporations and individuals committing themselves to a quality of life hitherto unseen on Indian shores. The endeavors of a vast majority of Indians towards mending the many flaws in the Indian social, political and economic systems have begun to bear some fruit, with the world at large viewing India as a symbol of something other than its clichéd shortcomings, and Brand India beginning to get its due respect on foreign turfs. So, it hurts all the more, when one hears and reads about the embarrassing fiasco that the build-up to the Commonwealth Games 2010 had thrown up, borne of a few unscrupulous and corrupt individuals, inflicting an unkind cut upon the