US-India trade deal very soon, says Donald Trump after meeting with PM Modi

US president says it will be great if PMs of India and Pakistan can ‘work out something on Kashmir’

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday promised a trade deal with India “very soon”, and a larger deal down the line. Asked if any trade deal was expected between the two countries, Trumap, after his bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting, told reporters: “We are doing very well…I think very soon we will have a trade deal. We will have a larger deal later on.”

Narendra Modi said, “As far as trade (between India and the US) is concerned, I’m happy that our Petronet has signed an MoU of $2.5-billion investment in the energy sector.” After the meeting, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal was in New York for discussions on a trade deal. “He has been having discussions with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and significant progress has been made on a number of issues. The two leaders were optimistic of us reaching a trade agreement in the near future,” Gokhale said.

Modi and Trump’s bilateral meeting, and the US president’s comments on a trade deal between the two countries, came on a day when Trump warned China for its trade practices. He also slammed the World Trade Organization (WTO) for allegedly allowing China to get preferential treatment despite the size of its economy, saying the institution needed reforms. In his speech before the UN, Trump made a fresh attack against the global order, saying that “globalists” would not triumph. “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots,” he said….

All’s well in India, says PM at ‘Howdy Modi’ rally; Trump hints about visit

Modi spoke of his govt’s decision to scrap the provisions of Article 370, and received sustained applause, and asked the audience to give a standing ovation to all members of the of Parliament

“All’s well in India,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an estimated 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora in Houston on Sunday at an event titled Howdy Modi and days after his government slashed corporate tax to address concerns of an economic slowdown.

The PM concluded his rousing speech by inviting US President Donald Trump, along with his family, to visit India soon, and the two leaders with their hands clasped, took a round of the stadium waving at the crowd in a gesture to convey the strength of their friendship to which both had alluded to in their respective speeches.

Earlier, addressing the Indian diaspora at the NRG Stadium in Houston, the US President hinted at visiting India as early as October, while Modi seemed to endorse his support for Trump’s re-election next year, and suggesting to the Indian-American community to do the same, by declaring “abki baar Trump sarkaar”.

During his speech, the US President received loud cheers when he said India and the US were united in their fight against “radical Islamic terrorism”, which is likely to be interpreted as a message to Pakistan. Modi spoke of his government’s decision to scrap the provisions of Article 370, and received sustained applause, and asked the audience to give a standing ovation to all members of the two Houses of Parliament….

Read More : Howdy Modi

Modi, Trump set to meet twice in less than a week this month: Indian envoy

The Indian ambassador to US asserted that the strategic relationship between two countries has the potential to become the ‘defining partnership’ within this century

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet twice in less than a week this month, India’s top envoy to America has said, asserting that the India-US strategic relationship has the potential to become the “defining partnership” within this century.

Since his re-election in May this year, Prime Minister Modi has met President Trump twice. The previous two meetings of the two leaders were on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Japan and G-7 Summit in France this summer. And later this week when Modi arrives in the US, they “are scheduled to meet twice more”, India’s ambassador to the US Harsh Vardhan Shringla told a Washington audience on Wednesday.

So, they would have “four meetings in the span of a few months,” Shringla said during the ‘India on the Hill: Charting a Future for Indo-US Relations’ event jointly organised by two think tanks The Heritage Foundation from the US and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) from India. Modi is scheduled to arrive in Houston on Saturday. A day later, Trump would join him in addressing the mega “Howdy Modi” rally to be attended by more than 50,000 Indian-Americans...

Modi-Trump meet: American Indians want PM to take up H-1B visa, hate crimes

Tensions ran particularly high this year when two Indian engineers were shot, one fatally, in Kansas

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India set to meet President Trump on Monday for the first time, many Indians in communities like this one have had high hopes for the relationship between the two leaders — both of whom swept to power as media-savvy political outsiders pledging to revive their national economies.

In a string of storefronts here in “Little India” that pay tribute to Hindu deities, Yogi Patel, 52, runs the Laxmi Pan Center, which is named after the goddess of wealth and sells a betel nut breath freshener. He has lived in the United States for 32 years and is a strong supporter of Mr. Trump.| economy policy

“Trump is doing the right thing. He’s doing good for U.S. citizens and America,” he said, switching between English and Hindi to explain that he grew up in Gujarat, the state that Mr. Modi led as chief minister before the 2014 election. “And I am from both countries.”

But as Mr. Trump has tried to crack down on immigration and withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, singling India out as a country that has gained unfairly from the accord, the meeting of the two leaders with nationalist leanings and sizable social media followings has taken on a more complicated tone for others in the Indian diaspora.

economy news| Mr. Trump is “a little bit unpredictable,” said Vasudev Patel, who voted for Mr. Trump and is the secretary of the Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party, USA, Mr. Modi’s party. “Nobody knows when he will make what comment. And the next day he will say he didn’t say that. He’s like an Indian politician.”

Of the roughly three million people of Indian descent in the United States, 65 percent are Democrats or lean Democratic, according to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center. But on both sides of the debate, political analysts say last year’s election has ignited a wave of political engagement among Indians in the United States, and that is also driving interest in this week’s meeting.

“Most immigrants who come are really trying to make a life for themselves and their families. They’re really concerned about the mortgage on the house, the papers to get their green card, family back at home,” said Devesh Kapur, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”

“This has now become a wake-up call that they cannot stand as aloof,” he added.

The diaspora in the United States sees itself as a wealthy and powerful segment of the population, with Indian-born business leaders, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai, rising to prominence in recent years.

The median income of an Indian-American household is $88,000, well above the $49,800 average for the United States as a whole, according to the Pew survey. And 38 percent of Indian-Americans have advanced degrees, compared with just 10 percent of the rest of the United States population.

“Indian-Americans or Indians here are politically active,” said Tanvi Madan, the head of the India Project at the Brookings Institution. “They are in the policy space. They have integrated in a substantial way. You see them on prime-time television show and in sports.”(read more)