Tags
diplomacy, Diwali, India, Islamabad, Mumbai, Obama agenda, Pakistan, President Pratibha Atil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
USAToday
November 8, 2010 Updated 14h 47m
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
These were some of the Indians whom President Obama met Sunday on the second day of his four-nation Asia tour. The issues raised highlight the massive challenges facing this poor but fast-growing nation of 1.1 billion people, to whom Obama promised he would elevate the U.S.-India partnership “to an entirely new level.”
He also faced the sensitive question of Pakistan-based terrorism, when asked, at a town-hall-style meeting with students, the question on many Indians’ minds: Why hasn’t the USA declared Pakistan a terrorist state? Obama stressed the need to work with Islamabad “to eradicate this extremism that we consider a cancer within the country that can potentially engulf the country.”
His answers satisfied Swetha Anandhan, a microbiology student at Mumbai‘s St. Xavier’s College, which hosted the event.
“You have to accept his need for diplomacy. I think he’s doing a good job, but I will wait for a year or two” to see whether he can really deepen Indian-U.S. ties, said Anandhan, 20.