The U.S. And India As Modi Visits Washington

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hits Washington. We’ll look at an Obama favorite and the complicated U.S.-India relationship.

For decades, the United States and India had a cool relationship. Barack Obama has changed that. As China has grown more assertive, the US and India have grown closer. This week, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi is in Washington. Tomorrow he address a joint session of Congress. India is now the fastest-growing major economy in the world. Modi came up as a Hindu nationalist. How far, how fast can this relationship go? This hour On Point, the U.S. rubs noses with India. — Tom Ashbrook

Nisid Hajari, Asia editor for Bloomberg View. Former foreign editor at Newsweek. Author of "Midnight's Furies." (@NisidHajari)

Siddhartha Deb, contributing editor at the New Republic. Author of "The Beautiful and the Damned." (@debhartha)

Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia. (@AyresAlyssa)

New Republic: Unmasking Modi — "Dynamism, potential, rise: These are the states of being captured by the entwinement of India and Modi. In the minds of India’s elite, and in that of an admiring, supportive West, India has been rising for a while, ever since it fully embraced Western capitalism in the early 1990s. Modi’s Madison Square Garden appearance was but an expression of that ascendance, from slumdogs into millionaires. But Modi was also in New York because of something that accompanies the rising India narrative: the perplexing reality that having been rising for so long, India is still not risen."

Council on Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations With India -- "Every aspect of the U.S.-India relationship has changed dramatically. The civil-nuclear agreement helped overcome what had been the single most divisive issue between both countries for more than thirty years. While its full commercial development remains incomplete, the civil-nuclear deal has had the effect of bringing India 'inside' the nonproliferation tent it spent three decades outside."

Bloomberg News: India Growth Surges More Than Estimated Before Rate Decision — "India’s world-beating economic growth accelerated more than estimated at the start of 2016, easing pressure on central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan to lower borrowing costs when he reviews policy."