E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Come Deepavali, most youngsters wait for the usual goodies: a new set of clothes, a box full of pataakis, and sweets, not necessarily in that order. But the essence is the same; everybody eagerly waits for presents in some form or the other.
This is also true to some extent when you have a relative coming from some other town to stay with you. As the aunt unpacks her suitcase after a hot cup of coffee, eager and expectant eyes hover around each and every move of hers as to when she will take out a packet of Bombay halwa or Dharwad peda.
So is the case with countries too.
When you have a visitor, who is also the most powerful person in the world, coming to visit your place, naturally there is some expectation about what he is going to unpack after he lands. So, when Barack Obama slips into Punjabi kurta and Michelle tucks into a saree, let’s see what goodies will pop on his teleprompter.
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WHAT INDIA EXPECTS FROM OBAMA
1. To stay clearly away from making any references to the ‘K’ word, not ‘Kama Sutra’ but Kashmir.
2. To make repeated references to terrorism, not in smooth general terms such as Al Qaeda etc, but in specific terms such as 26 /11, LeT , Jaish e Mohammed, etc, and handing over perpetrators of Mumbai massacre.
3. To get permanent membership to India on the United Nations security council.
4. Not to make it difficult to Indian companies to get visa for their employees.
5. To recognize and praise Rahul Gandhi as the future leader of India and not keep on praising Manmohan Singh as an extraordinary leader of our times.
6. To specifically reduce giving aid and arms to Pakistan which, all three contries know very well, will be used against India.
WHAT PAKISTAN EXPECTS FROM OBAMA
Although our honoured guest is not visiting Pakistan, as a rich guest he can still give gifts to our neighbour in so many ways and they both know that.
1. Raise Kashmir issue and nudge India to solve the same quickly. Or else the Af-Pak policy is doomed.
2. Quoting interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar and Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, they will want to be involved in dialogue with India.
3. Tell India to reduce their army presence in Kashmir valley and stop killing innocent civilians.
4. Tell India to solve the pending river water issues.
5. Tell India not to harass Pakistan cricketers implicated in match-fixing scandals through Sharad Pawar’s ICC.
6. Tell India and in particular home minister P. Chidambaram not to send so many dossiers every second day on 26 /11 as it has become difficult to find storage space for the same.
WHAT OBAMA WILL FINALLY DO
1. Praise India as one of the most important emerging nations in the world and since the time was not ‘ripe’ right now, he will ask India to continue its present great role and wait till time becomes ‘ripe’ .This is for India’s permanent seat o the UN security council.
2. Will make a hair-rising, goose pimple-generating speech in Parliament quoting Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln. The 500+ MPs and their aunts will shake his right arm for an hour and almost yank it off. Hairs that dramatically rose during his speech will come back to the original position after sometime.
3. Will ask India to take over the leadership of Asia along with China; will praise India’s role in fighting terrorism. Same evening, the State department will praise Pakistan as ‘its strongest ally’ in its fight against global terrorism and announce another $3 billion in aid to a “valued partner”.
4. Will dance with school children of Mehouli and urge children from Mehouli and Minnesota to carry the torch of freedom to all corners of globe. Yes, they can.
5. Will call upon Bangalore software companies to share their knowledge with their counterparts in US by keeping their staff in Bangalore itself and not send them to US.
6. Will sing songs with adivasis in Connaught circus who have been rounded up outside Delhi and invite them to Alabama, US.
7. Will invite Suresh Kalmadi and Ashok Chavan, the emerging stars of the ruling party, for a White House luncheon and share their experiences for which they achieved their greatness.
In his eagerness to please the host, horror of horrors, he will forget to praise the emerging future leader which will create some kind of ‘cold war’ climate with the hosts.
Having realized this, he will send a message to the young leader before touchdown at Jakarta airport asking him to visit US as his personal guest and share his experiences of traveling in unreserved trains in India with full security around him.
Cartoon: courtesy Baloo‘s cartoon blog
churumuri 
What Obama expects from India?
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1. Sea facing flat in Adarsh Society where he can spend his post-presidency days two years from now.
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A very nice and an insightful column by ERR! One of his very best.
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What Obama expects from India?
Obama will be absolutely impressed by, India’s democracy where money has no role in elections, its leaders, who unlike their American counterparts do not belong to “political dynasties”, Mumbai city which makes New York look very dull, zero corruption and honesty in public life, “world class” infrastructure wherever you go in India, and India’s educational institutes which make Harvard and Stanford look like primary schools.
Obama would find India so amazing that he might decide to emigrate to India past his presidency. Or he might even consider working “offshore” (or is it onsite) from a remote office in Bangalore for the next two years. He would apply for an Indian H1B visa, hopefully Indian consulate will not make him go through “additional processing”. After being here for two more years, he would apply for an Indian green card and eventually citizenship.
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@Goldstar,
sariyaagi helidri :)
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awesome stuff
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Loads of BS everywhere. Obama will spend millions (200 mn/day, allegedly), come here, praise India and go. India will spend millions to host him and feel superior to Pak while millions of its ppl crawling on roads. What’s the result? Nothing.
I think countries such as ours that can not afford these BS should stop doing it and perhaps scrap huge expenditure on Foreign ministry. Isn’t it a sick joke that a SM Krishna (Full bright scholar at DC university) who can not utter 2 sentences coherently gets millions for doing nothing.
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@Abhi,
It is easy to say these things. It is impossible to foster ties between two countries without such visits.
If you are really interested in poor people, just do one thing: make sure that every political party will spend within the stipulated limits before the elections and every paise spent is made public. This one thing can save millions for India and it will also make sure corruption will drastically reduce.
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Oh, what a brilliant article ALBERT EINSTEIN. This is rocket science, seriously, we didnt know any of this – thanks for the insights.
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Obama has set the ball rolling through the UID or Aadhar strategy. The identity of 1.2 billion indians will be used for marketing activities,
Free mass mailers will start dropping at their door steps. They will be paranoid with endless calls landing at their mobile /cell phones.
This is beginning of free time external governance that we are going to face in the time to come.
A sin committed by this generation of Indians will be passed to the next generation of Indians who will become the slaves of identity.
While we talk about unorganized corruption in this country all the while, UID will begin organized corruption through identity thieves who will the the corrupt govt of the day.
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Well talking about UID, recently got my UID enrollment done.
Anyone who goes thru this will surely come to know that its main objective is for security reason. Everything you need to declare in the form like, Gas connection, ration card, Bank account num and other stuff is voluntary. No verification done. Only verification done is for Age proof and identity proof(that too not strict). Then they do all 10 finger prints, iris scan and photo-op (which seems to be main objective).
Also people who do all these are young people below 25-26 who are more busy with their cell phones than actual task at work ;>
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@Prasad
Kindly let me know where the UID enrolment is carried out i Mysore? Do they give the UID no on the spot? What documents one has to carry?
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@Bertie
I got it done in Tumkur. As in Tumkur, I guess it will be done in MysoreOne offices, CMC office. They just give the acknowledgment and actual UID card is sent to your address after a month or so. Docs to carry, Age proof like passport/pan card/DL/SSLC marks card, Identity proof like passport/ration card/DL/Voter Id others. In Tumkur people are super excited and we need to go their at 5.30 – 6 AM to get the appointment for the photo-up ;>
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Thanks Prasad for your information.I will be off to Mysore One centre at Jayanagar with the required docs. I am sure initial glitches have been rectified and the UID no will be generated.
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India expected from Obama please stop violence in Kashmir, help us from aggressiveness of China.Please Obama stop terrorist attack on India Give more visa to our cyber coolies donot stop outsourcing.Obama expected from India please eat more junk food from Mcdonald . Watch more movies of hollywood,Purchase junk nuclear machineries Read pop psychology books garbage of America.
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