Narendra Modi made his fourth trip to the United States as India’s prime minister this week, a personal triumph of sorts for a politician once denied an American visa on the grounds that his record in regional government was pockmarked by violations of religions freedom. Mr Modi failed to stop a series of deadly riots against Muslims.
But however much the publicity-savvy prime minister’s team spins his seventh meeting in two years with Barack Obama and his Wednesday address to a joint session of the US Congress, this moment is not really about Mr Modi. Mostly, it revolves around China, or at least American attempts to prevent it from dominating the Asia-Pacific region. And in according Mr Modi the honour of addressing Congress – he is only the fifth Indian prime minister to do so – America’s often-fractious political establishment is underlining its solid bipartisan support for a 16-year-old bridge-building process with the world’s most populous democracy.
Three successive US administrations have steadily worked at the relationship with India, making allowances for its postcolonial prickliness, its socialist non-alignment, its reluctance to bend the knee to a superpower and its fits of jealousy about the heed paid to Pakistan.
In 2000, president Bill Clinton advocated recognition that 21st-century America’s interests aligned with India’s. In 2006, George W Bush negotiated a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal that effectively ended a 34-year ban on nuclear trade with India.
Mr Obama has offered support to India’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and indicated that America backs India’s participation in the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. It would be too much to say that we are seeing the US-India equation evolve into an indispensable relationship. But it is clear that it has acquired the comfortable, if unexciting, constancy of a long-term arrangement.
This is unlikely to change no matter who wins the US presidency come November. It says a great deal about the stability of the bilateral relationship that the Indian foreign policy establishment is divided on who would be better for India – another Clinton in the White House or that unknown quantity, a president Trump.
Some incline to the latter because of Mr Trump’s loud hostility towards China. Others see Mrs Clinton, who was at her husband’s side in India as first lady in 2000, as more likely to boldly take the relationship further forward.
How did this sanguine state of affairs come about? Not because of an irresistible attraction. Relationships between countries, much like those between people, often exist in the doleful zone described by reggae star Bob Marley as follows: truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. That both the US and India seem to find each other worth suffering for, highlights the third entity in the relationship: China.
Beijing’s new maritime assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions has greatly alarmed the US, India and other countries.
India worries about increasing Chinese submarine stand-alone missions in its maritime neighbourhood; Japan is at loggerheads with China in the East China Sea and the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam contest China’s expansionist claims in the strategically vital South China Sea, through which half of India’s trade passes as well.
Though one of these disputes – Beijing vs Manila in the South China Sea – will be ruled on by an international tribunal in The Hague later this month, the rest are not so easily dealt with. Thus, India now looms large in every American assessment of how best to address Chinese presumption in “the Asian commons”, as America’s envoy in India Richard Verma put it.
Accordingly, last month, India and the US held their first maritime security dialogue and the starting point was increased Indian naval engagement in the Indian Ocean and South East Asia.
In October, there was proof of an emerging triangular partnership when the Indo-US naval exercise “Malabar” in the Indian Ocean included Japan for the first time in eight years. Unsurprisingly, Beijing read the sea spray correctly and called it out as an attempt to build an anti-China coalition in the region.
American eagerness to help India keep the peace has only been matched by its partner’s eagerness to enter into joint defence production and buy up stocks of sophisticated weaponry. India’s aggregate defence acquisitions from the US now total more than $13 billion (Dh47 bn).
This is weighty stuff and quite enough to build a partnership between two countries prone to pointing out they are the world’s biggest democracies. But is it enough?
Sixteen years on from when Bill Clinton came courting, there is a sense that the relationship has settled too quickly into the sensible zone, without the frisson of new possibilities. At least some of this is to do with the perception among US politicians that India remains unwilling to commit.
Just days ago, one US senator complained about India’s “high tariffs, limits on foreign investment, onerous and unreasonable localisation requirements, and unparalleled bureaucratic red tape”.
‘Twas well said that there is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness. For a real India-US love fest, the reasoning has to go beyond shared concerns about China.
Rashmee Roshan Lall is a writer on world affairs
On Twitter: @rashmeerl
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T20 World Cup Qualifier fixtures
Tuesday, October 29
Qualifier one, 2.10pm – Netherlands v UAE
Qualifier two, 7.30pm – Namibia v Oman
Wednesday, October 30
Qualifier three, 2.10pm – Scotland v loser of qualifier one
Qualifier four, 7.30pm – Hong Kong v loser of qualifier two
Thursday, October 31
Fifth-place playoff, 2.10pm – winner of qualifier three v winner of qualifier four
Friday, November 1
Semi-final one, 2.10pm – Ireland v winner of qualifier one
Semi-final two, 7.30pm – PNG v winner of qualifier two
Saturday, November 2
Third-place playoff, 2.10pm
Final, 7.30pm
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
FA CUP FINAL
Manchester City 6
(D Silva 26', Sterling 38', 81', 87', De Bruyne 61', Jesus 68')
Watford 0
Man of the match: Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)
SHALASH%20THE%20IRAQI
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UAE v IRELAND
All matches start at 10am, and will be played in Abu Dhabi
1st ODI, Friday, January 8
2nd ODI, Sunday, January 10
3rd ODI, Tuesday, January 12
4th ODI, Thursday, January 14
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
Scoreline
Chelsea 1
Azpilicueta (36')
West Ham United 1
Hernandez (73')
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Fixtures (all in UAE time)
Friday
Everton v Burnley 11pm
Saturday
Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur 3.30pm
West Ham United v Southampton 6pm
Wolves v Fulham 6pm
Cardiff City v Crystal Palace 8.30pm
Newcastle United v Liverpool 10.45pm
Sunday
Chelsea v Watford 5pm
Huddersfield v Manchester United 5pm
Arsenal v Brighton 7.30pm
Monday
Manchester City v Leicester City 11pm
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-finals, second leg:
Liverpool (0) v Barcelona (3), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Game is on BeIN Sports
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
'Laal Kaptaan'
Director: Navdeep Singh
Stars: Saif Ali Khan, Manav Vij, Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain
Rating: 2/5
Cricket World Cup League Two
Teams
Oman, UAE, Namibia
Al Amerat, Muscat
Results
Oman beat UAE by five wickets
UAE beat Namibia by eight runs
Namibia beat Oman by 52 runs
UAE beat Namibia by eight wickets
Fixtures
Saturday January 11 - UAE v Oman
Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20M3%20MACBOOK%20AIR%20(13%22)
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Zidane's managerial achievements
La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017
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Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
GROUPS
Group Gustavo Kuerten
Novak Djokovic (x1)
Alexander Zverev (x3)
Marin Cilic (x5)
John Isner (x8)
Group Lleyton Hewitt
Roger Federer (x2)
Kevin Anderson (x4)
Dominic Thiem (x6)
Kei Nishikori (x7)
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Real Madrid 1
Ronaldo (87')
Athletic Bilbao 1
Williams (14')
TERMINAL HIGH ALTITUDE AREA DEFENCE (THAAD)
What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US's most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out ballistic missiles as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 150 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
RESULTS
Bantamweight: Victor Nunes (BRA) beat Azizbek Satibaldiev (KYG). Round 1 KO
Featherweight: Izzeddin Farhan (JOR) beat Ozodbek Azimov (UZB). Round 1 rear naked choke
Middleweight: Zaakir Badat (RSA) beat Ercin Sirin (TUR). Round 1 triangle choke
Featherweight: Ali Alqaisi (JOR) beat Furkatbek Yokubov (UZB). Round 1 TKO
Featherweight: Abu Muslim Alikhanov (RUS) beat Atabek Abdimitalipov (KYG). Unanimous decision
Catchweight 74kg: Mirafzal Akhtamov (UZB) beat Marcos Costa (BRA). Split decision
Welterweight: Andre Fialho (POR) beat Sang Hoon-yu (KOR). Round 1 TKO
Lightweight: John Mitchell (IRE) beat Arbi Emiev (RUS). Round 2 RSC (deep cuts)
Middleweight: Gianni Melillo (ITA) beat Mohammed Karaki (LEB)
Welterweight: Handesson Ferreira (BRA) beat Amiran Gogoladze (GEO). Unanimous decision
Flyweight (Female): Carolina Jimenez (VEN) beat Lucrezia Ria (ITA), Round 1 rear naked choke
Welterweight: Daniel Skibinski (POL) beat Acoidan Duque (ESP). Round 3 TKO
Lightweight: Martun Mezhlumyan (ARM) beat Attila Korkmaz (TUR). Unanimous decision
Bantamweight: Ray Borg (USA) beat Jesse Arnett (CAN). Unanimous decision
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
MWTC
Tickets start from Dh100 for adults and are now on sale at www.ticketmaster.ae and Virgin Megastores across the UAE. Three-day and travel packages are also available at 20 per cent discount.