Saturday, June 24

Today is our 200th blog post, so we have another YNH Exclusive for Your Daily Update! Enjoy!

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has just visited the United States, to bring up talks with not only US President Joe Biden, but the CEOs of companies like Tesla, Apple, Google, and Microsoft as well.

Modi and Biden first talked about deepening defense relations with each other, and how India is trying to become less Russia-dependent, especially oil and military related. It is well known around the world that Russia is India's primary source of oil and arms, but Modi is trying to change that. Ever since Russia started the war against Ukraine, they have failed to deliver the arms that India needs, leading the South Asian country to start looking for other sources of these important resources. However, India continues to buy Russia's cheap oil while European countries impose more and more sanctions on the oil that comes from Russia. India understands that it may be trying to reduce its Russian dependence, but Russia has helped India through rough times in the past, so India cannot just simply abandon them.

The main point is, both India and the US are reaching out to each other to develop a strong partnership, and improve relations between the countries. However, United States officials stated that this partnership would be slightly different to the US than others. The United States sees most partners as allies, but India will be more like an independent partnership for the US to have someone to rely on- not their ally. India has remained neutral in the Russia-Ukraine War, and it intends to stay that way. Becoming allies with the US could be detrimental to their relations with Russia and China, which India would not want. And when you add Pakistan into the mix, you can see that India is not in the best position- it is bordered to the west by a country who is constantly trying to take land from them in the north (Pakistan), it is bordered to the northeast by a country that has remained in conflict over borders since the 1950s (China), and heavily relies on a country that is failing to deliver the arms they need (Russia). This is why it is essential for these two countries to collaborate together, as it could be very good for both countries' economies and their defense relations, but India would still want to keep good relations with other countries as well.

They also spoke about more partnerships in the technology sector, which is where the tech companies listed above came in. Most of those companies are trying to expand into the Indian market, which could be very beneficial. Right now, only one main electric car is on the market in India, the Tiago EV produced by Tata Motors, but Tesla is hoping to expand into the South Asian country as well. Since pollution is a huge problem in India's big cities, such as Delhi- which consistently remains as one of the worst cities in the world in terms of air quality- electric cars are an important piece of technology that could be very helpful to India. On the other hand, if India becomes a big technological hub for the world, this could serve as a backup for NATO if they want to detach from China (or as some US officials call it, the "China plus one" strategy). More and more tech companies from around the world are investing in India's technological sector, and it could soon become the second tech hub that the world needs.