PM Modi’s go to to Washington sends out blended alerts

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is having a ball and the way! Simply the day earlier than, he was within the White Home Oval Workplace answering questions from the press — together with his younger son perched on his shoulder for a while.

US President Donald Trump appeared bored and paid little consideration to the boy — or ‘brat’ as People would name him — even when the kid picked his nostril and cleaned his finger on the Presidential desk. The boy is then seen saying one thing to the US President however Trump doesn’t even smile. Unconfirmed reviews claimed that the little boy had apparently instructed the President of the US that he ought to go away and that he want to ‘shush’ him.

The following day, when Musk referred to as on the Indian prime minister, he was accompanied by his three kids and two women, mentioned to be his girlfriend and the youngsters’s nanny. On the opposite aspect sat Indian international minister S. Jaishankar, nationwide safety advisor Ajit Kumar Doval, international secretary Vikram Misri and several other different officers, trying nonplussed.

It’s not clear whether or not it was a critical enterprise assembly, however what was the sign that Musk — who needs to enter the Indian market with Starlink satellite tv for pc communication and Tesla electrical vehicles — despatched out?

The informal remedy made the Indian delegation look silly. Whether or not there was a deliberate design to humiliate the Indian PM just isn’t clear, however the photographs shared by the PM himself are removed from edifying. One of many pictures appeared to counsel that the PM was handing out presents to the youngsters. It was so embarrassing that the PMO (prime minister’s workplace) most likely determined to not put up them on social media from the ‘official’ deal with, because it had been.

Worse was to observe. Even earlier than assembly PM Modi, President Trump declared one other hike in tariffs on exports to the US, and spoke of reciprocal tariff. He singled out India as one of many nations which imposes excessive tariff limitations on imports and declared bluntly that these days are over. Any further, it could be reciprocal tariff, he asserted — tit for tat — with no room for negotiation.

India, in fact, had already reacted in anticipation and lowered tariffs on US imports, with the highest 30 imports into India from the US proposed to be taxed at lower than 7.5 per cent within the Union Funds offered on 1 February.

However that didn’t deter the US President from humiliating his visitor. With PM Modi seated subsequent to him, Trump instructed journalists, “…India historically is simply in regards to the highest tariff nation, they cost extra tariffs than some other nation. No matter they cost us, we’re charging them…historically, India is true on the high of the pack just about. There are a few smaller nations which are really extra however India costs super tariffs. I bear in mind when Harley Davidson could not promote their motorbikes in India due to the truth that in India… the tax was so excessive, the tariff was so excessive…”

The US President additionally made a lot of his administration’s resolution to extradite ‘one of many plotters’ of the 26/11 assaults on Mumbai in 2008 to face justice in India. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin who resided within the US, and David Coleman Headley, a US citizen, had been each accused of being a part of the conspiracy to assault Mumbai in November 2008.

Each had been arrested by US regulation enforcement companies in 2009 after India’s Nationwide Investigation Company (NIA) registered a case on 11 November 2009 at New Delhi’s NIA police station beneath sections 121A of the IPC, part 18 of the Illegal Actions (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and part 6(2) of the SAARC Conference (Suppression of Terrorism) Act in opposition to them and others.

Headley alias Daood Gilani, a resident of Chicago, Illinois and Rana, additionally primarily residing in Chicago, had been accused of coming into right into a prison conspiracy with members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HUJI), each primarily based in Pakistan and declared as terrorist organisations by the federal government of India beneath the UAPA, for committing terrorist acts in New Delhi and different locations in India.

No matter intelligence that they had was presumably shared with each US and Indian companies; and Rana’s extradition 16 years after the occasion and his arrest is unlikely to make a lot distinction to his case. It’s, nevertheless, telling that neither the Indian aspect nor the US demanded the extradition of Headley, mentioned to have been a double agent working for US intelligence companies.

And as if all this was not sufficient, the American aspect leaked to the media that the following lot of unlawful immigrants to the US from India had been being despatched again this week. Whereas no point out was made from particulars, it seems doubtless {that a} US army airplane will once more be used, and as soon as once more is prone to land in Amritsar over the weekend. The timing of the deportation makes it seem like a deliberate try to insult and humiliate the Indian PM.

For the document, President Trump did reward PM Modi a espresso desk e book and write, ‘Mr Prime Minister, you might be GREAT’ (capitalisation by Trump).