On India, challenges ahead

NEW YORK CITY: Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia has been widely praised. But many critics wish that he would infuse the policy with greater substance and energy. In fact, the administration has the opportunity to fill in one of the great missing pieces of that policy—a strategic relationship with the continent’s second largest country, India —once a new government emerges in New Delhi. But it will require both countries to make some major changes.

The immediate obstacle for the United States is that the man most likely to become India’s next prime minister, Narendra Modi, was placed on a blacklist of sorts by the George W. Bush administration, was denied a visa to enter America, and has been shunned by US officials for a decade. This ostracism should stop, whether Modi wins or loses (and becomes leader of the opposition). Singling out Modi in this manner has been selective, arbitrary and excessive.