PM Modi’s US visit: What the likes of Republic TV & Zee News won’t tell you – By Jammi N Rao
….This year,… the 76th UNGA afforded a chance for assorted leaders… to be seen, photographed, heard and video-taped, and to meet, if they could get an audience, with the new White House team of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. For India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was a much awaited and long anticipated return to some semblance of a pre-Covid level frenetic globe-trotting…. But how did it go for Team Modi?… The media reactions to the visit and its aftermath followed the usual playbook….
But how did other players respond?… the voices of human rights and religious freedoms were telling the US President’s team the issues he should take up with his Indian counterpart. On 22 September in a 90-minute webinar, under the “Congressional briefings” banner chaired by John Prabhudoss,… The broad but pointed message… was that it was incumbent upon the Biden White House to impress upon the Indian side that a strong and stable strategic partnership can only be sustained by respect for human rights; space for the democratic values of free speech, press freedoms, and the rule of law; and the promotion of religious freedoms of minorities.
The leader of the Farmers protest, Rakesh Tikait tweeted an “open letter” to President Biden to intercede with his Indian counterpart on behalf of the agitating farmers. The meeting at the White House with Vice-President Kamala Harris invited social media attention for the VP’s pointed mention of the importance of democratic values in both countries….
