Once again Barak Obama visits India, meets with the PM and the youngsters of the nation in New Delhi. Here are the details.
Former US President Barack Obama, who is in Delhi today for a town hall for the Obama Foundation, is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the visit. The two leaders had developed a warm rapport during Mr. Obama’s tenure as the President.
In a Facebook message, Mr. Obama has said, “I will be conducting a town hall with young leaders of India who can share with me some of the works they are trying to do to make communities better and also answer questions on how Obama Foundation can help.”
At the town hall, which began at 3:45 PM today, the former US President is expected to interact with around 300 young leaders from across India. It will be streamed lived at Obama.org, and on the Obama Foundation’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. He greeted the audience in Hindi.
The meet will “expand the conversation about what it means to be an active citizen and make an impact and how the Obama Foundation can support emerging leaders in this effort,” Mr. Obama’s office had said in a statement. His office also said he would meet PM Modi during the visit, although no timing was specified.
Bilateral relations between India and the US had reached a new high under the Obama administration. Obama has said that India and the US have so much in common.
While PM Modi visited the US four times and had been hosted at the White House, President Obama had been the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations in 2015, months before he demitted office. During the visit, he had even co-hosted “Mann ki Baat”, the Prime Minister’s monthly radio program.
The Prime Minister said it was a pleasure to meet the former US President once again, both discussed the Indo-US ties.
The India visit is part of Mr. Obama’s three-nation tour that also includes China and France. In China, he is expected to meet President Xi Jinping, who has recently hosted US President Donald Trump in Beijing.
Prior to this, Mr. Obama has hosted events with young leaders in Germany, Indonesia, and Brazil.
Former US President Barack was asked about the fact that a lot was written about his friendship with PM Narendra Modi.
Obama paused a beat, and then reminded the audience that he was “also great friends” with another Prime Minister India had not so long ago.
“I like him (Modi)…I think he has a vision for the country…he is making efforts to modernize some elements of bureaucracy. But I was also great friends with Dr. (Manmohan) Singh,” said Obama.
The 44th US President then talked about how former PM Singh, a Cambridge-trained economist, was a great support in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, with whom he shared a friendly relationship during his eight-year tenure, which coincided with Singh being the Prime Minister in India.
“Manmohan Singh was the primary partner while we were working during the financial meltdown (of 2008). When you look at the steps Singh took to modernizing the economy, it was the foundation for modernizing Indian economy,” he said.
Obama has praised the UPA PM before. In 2010, after the G20 summit in Toronto, the then US President notably said of Singh, “When the prime minister speaks, people listen”. This was particularly significant as the world was then grappling with the fallout of the US housing crisis.
“I can tell you that here at G20 when the prime minister speaks, people listen,” he said, adding it was because of his deep knowledge of economic issues, the nuances of India’s rise as a world power and its commitment towards global peace and prosperity, according to IANS news agency.
A year before that, on the sidelines of another G20 summit, Obama had called Singh “a wise and wonderful man”.
Today, Obama also praised PM Modi. He said the PM was a big driver of the Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015. Significantly, in June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement.
On a side note, Barack Obama had the audience here in splits when he said that he was the first American president to have a recipe for daal, the humble Indian dish which is a staple in many Indian households.
Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit in a question-answer session, he explained to Karan Thapar that the night before the waiter who served him daal, among other dishes, began explaining how daal was made. Mr. Obama said he told him that he need not do so since he knew how to make daal and had his own recipe learned from his Indian roommate when he was a student.
Even while he began speaking about his daal expertise at the summit, both the hand-held mikes of the interviewer and the interviewee malfunctioned. The two had to enter into off-mike small talk before it was replaced a couple of minutes later. “My keema is also good, and my chicken is OK,” the man who earlier headed the most powerful office in the world said to smiles all around.
When Mr. Thapar asked him whether he could make a chapati, Mr. Obama said he could not. “Chapati is hard,” the former president of United States said.
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