Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions.
Friendship with the US is fraught with friction-and fiction -even at the best of times. For the most part, and with most countries, it involves an unequal relationship with one party frequently invoking God. Ask the Mexicans, one of whose leaders exclaimed,” Poor Mexico....so far from God and so close to the United States!” Or Canadians, who often say,” God Bless America, but God help Canada to put up with them!” Washington is an overbearing and demanding friend intent on maintaining its global primacy. It is even more so during the Trumpera : America First.
If one goes by the premise that it is better to be ignored by Washington than be courted by it, India may have been lucky that for the nearly half century it was at the margins of American interest. That time ended in the late 1990s.Successive Indian prime ministers over the past 22 years have taken New Delhi closer and closer to Washington-none more than Prime Minister Narendra Modi-bridging the chasm that developed during half a century of Cold War.
Much of this embrace stems from India’s emergence as a potential economic powerhouse and enduring people-to-people ties. Even during the Cold War, when New Delhi was widely seen as Soviet camp follower, more Indians went to the US-and were welcomed-than to Russia. As a result, the US is now home to more than 4 million Indian-Americans who see it as their karma bhoomi, and around 200,000 Indian students at any given time. No country in the world has hosted and absorbed more. This is why some of the world’s top companies such as Microsoft, Google and IBM, have CEOs of Indian-origin.
Despite this, the US-India economic relationship has underperformed and has been undeserved, particularly when compared to China, after a decade of rapid growth. Although trade ballooned from teen billions at the turn of the century to nearly $100 billion by 2015,it has not keep pace with the strategic intent/goal of the US to support India’s rise as a global power and a counter weight to China. In fact, the projection during the Obama-Biden -Kerry-Clinton years that trade could be bumped up to $500 billion remains as distant as New Delhi’s hopes of ramping its GDP to $5 trillion by 2025.
In fact, the projection during the Obama-Biden-Kerry-Clinton years that trade could be bumped up to $500 billion remains as distant as New Delhi’s hopes of ramping its GDP to $5 trillion by 2025.
6 videos|295 docs
|
|
Explore Courses for CLAT exam
|