Modi heads for White House

WASHINGTON — When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets United States President Barack Obama for the first time at the White House, the welcome will be very different from the response Mr Modi got nearly a decade ago when he wanted to visit the US. Then, his visa request was denied.

But his election in May as the leader of the world’s largest democracy has transformed Mr Modi into a welcome visitor. The two leaders were set to first break the ice over dinner yesterday as they seek to reinvigorate soured relations between their countries.

Mr Obama’s courtship of Mr Modi will continue today with a meeting in the Oval Office, marking a rare second day of attention from the American President.

During their talks, Mr Obama and Mr Modi were to focus on economic growth and cooperation on security, clean energy, climate change and other issues, the White House said.

Mr Obama had visited India in 2010, during which he held up the US-India relationship as the “defining partnership” of the 21st century.

But the relationship has been lukewarm at best. While military cooperation and US defence sales have grown, the economic relationship has been rockier, with Washington frustrated by India’s failure to open its economy to more foreign investment and address complaints over intellectual property violations. The arrest and strip search last year in New York of an Indian diplomat on visa fraud charges frayed relations further.

A major aspect of this week’s visit is the chance for both leaders to begin building rapport, administration officials said. Mr Obama was among the first Western leaders to congratulate Mr Modi by phone after his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party had swept into power following a landslide victory in May.

Mr Modi’s acceptance of Mr Obama’s invitation to the US suggested that he had moved beyond the resentment of being denied a visa in 2005, three years after religious riots killed more than 1,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat, where he was the top elected official. The Prime Minister has denied involvement in the riots and India’s Supreme Court has said there was no case to bring against him.

Yet, lingering suspicions about the riots threaten to overshadow his five-day visit. A little-known US human rights group filed a lawsuit against him in New York on Friday, alleging that he had failed to stop the riots. Washington and New Delhi have brushed off the suit, saying it would not affect the visit.

Ahead of the meeting with Mr Obama, Mr Modi had on Sunday addressed a sold-out audience of more than 18,000 people — mostly Indian-Americans — at Madison Square Garden in New York, where he sold himself as a one-time tea vendor who wanted to lift India to glory by cleaning up the country, clearing the way for business and preparing its young citizens to be the workforce of an ageing world.

In the hour-long address, he made fun of those who said he lacked “big vision”. “I tell them, ‘My friends, I came here selling tea,’” he said, and paused as the audience leapt to its feet and clapped. “I’m a small man. My mind is busy doing small things.”

He also called on Indians living abroad to “join hands to serve our mother India”.

Besides joining Mr Obama for dinner, Mr Modi is also scheduled to attend a State Department lunch today with Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. Agencies