Obama: Partner or Trader of India

(An old piece of writing, was written when Obama visited India in November 2010)

There was a time when Indian Prime Ministers used to visit America looking for food to feed hungry Indians, now the US president visit India looking for job opportunities for Americans. Obama might have opposed to the outsourcing of jobs to India but his countrymen and his fellow democrats have outsourced him to India to create new job opportunities and save his face after a humiliating mid-term poll defeat of the democrats.

The importance given to India can definitely be attributed to the fact that it presents lucrative market for the American products. President Obama is eyeing the Indian market and get into the defence market. According to THE ECONOMIST, American defence firms are dying to strike a deal with India and desperately want to have a slice of $45 billion that India would spend on military goods. American engineers and construction companies are all set to gain money from Indian market.

In discussing the issue of FDI in retail, WalMart is pressurizing the Obama government to enter the Indian market. For those who don’t know that WalMart in 1991 gained a toehold in Mexico through a joint venture with a Mexican company Cifra and within 10years , not only had WalMart taken over the company, it had gained control of more than half the retail market. With the help of its deep pockets and continuous pressure on Obama govt, and Obama slowly succumbing to its pressure, WalMart is likely to affect livelihood of lakhs of people employed in retail business.

The Obama govt didn’t even share information and photographs of David Headley who was training under LeT and plotted the Mumbai attack, had it shared the info on time then the attack could have been averted.

By America’s foreign policies for India and Pakistan we can clearly see the double standards of Barack Obama. It has been known by everyone that America is a hypocrite nation and its high time now that we look into both sides of the coin and by cautiously observing the merits and the de-merits of the visit and take a wise decision so that we should not squander the opportunity.