Many media houses observed president Trump ‘stumbled over’ pronunciations, and that the meeting is unlikely to yield major bilateral agreements.
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump landed in India on Monday on a 2-day state visit along with First Lady Melania Trump. He arrived in Ahmedabad where PM Narendra Modi received him. Trump and Melania later visited Agra to see the Taj Mahal. They later arrived in New Delhi for the last leg of their visit to India.
Indian media was on the edge to cover Donald Trump’s India visit. However, the way International, especially American, Media, has covered the events is more appealing.
The New York Times reported the Namaste Trump event at Motera Stadium, Ahmedabad, as “an unabashed homage” to Donald Trump. The article said Trump “betrayed unfamiliarity” with the country and “stumbled over several pronunciations”.
“The way the Indian government has chosen to present the visit — not as a high-powered summit meeting but as “Namaste Trump,” essentially “Howdy, Modi!” Part 2 — seems to signal that it may shape up as more of a public relations exercise, albeit a memorable one, than anything else,” the piece reads.
The Washington Post is running a live blog to cover Trump’s first day in India. The international media outlet wrote, “Trump’s visit to India comes as the two countries continue to deepen their security cooperation but face stubborn tensions over trade”.
Washington Post published a piece dated today by Rana Ayyub which said the 36-hour tour “was designed to bolster the image of the two men, not improve the ties between the two nations”.
Ayyub wrote: “Today, Trump’s visit is playing right into the hands of Modi’s divisive Hindu nationalist rhetoric and policies.”
Washington Post also reported, “Deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims broke out in several neighbourhoods of Delhi on Monday, killing at least seven people, and rioting continued on Tuesday. The violence began with a confrontation between supporters and opponents of controversial new citizenship law.”
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Fox News generously said Trump “drew the crowd of a lifetime” on his maiden trip to India. Its piece added this titbit: “Later in his visit, the president and first lady toured the site of the Taj Mahal. The famous Indian landmark had served as the inspiration for a hotel and casino Trump once owned in Atlantic City, N.J.”
“India might have rolled out the red carpet for President Trump’s Monday visit, but the massive rally, hundreds of cheerleaders and weeks of preparation glossed over one of the largest civil disputes that have gripped the country in years,” noted the report in Fox News.
Bloomberg on the other hand, titled report covering President Trump’s India visit as ‘Trump met by Modi’s promised pageantry on arrival in India’.
The article described how the US President “received a red-carpet welcome in Ahmedabad” and how he has “repeatedly boasted about the crowds he anticipates for the India roadshow”.
Bloomberg noted to how “violence erupted in New Delhi just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump was due to arrive in the Indian capital, as rival groups protested the country’s contentious religion-based citizenship law”.
LA Times said drily that the Namaste Trump event alone was “enough to entice the president to fly to India for the state visit, even though the two days of meetings between Trump and Modi are unlikely to yield any major bilateral agreements”.
It said Trump “did not explicitly acknowledge the rise in anti-Muslim violence that has accompanied Modi’s rise to power or his Hindu nationalist government’s efforts to marginalize the country’s 200 million Muslims”.
The Guardian reported on the violence in the Indian national capital as, “Donald Trump’s visit to Delhi has been overshadowed by deadly protests that have continued to engulf India’s capital, as Muslim and Hindu groups clashed violently and the death toll rose to nine.”
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