A couple of months back, PolitiFact found that Obama has kept around 91 of his promises out of 500! This should not be surprising, as breaking promises has been a trend associated with all the American presidents.
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A couple of months back, PolitiFact found that Obama has kept around 91 of his promises out of 500! This should not be surprising, as breaking promises has been a trend associated with all the American presidents.
Take for instance Woodrow Wilson who promised to keep the US out of World War I and ended up pushing the US into the same war. Then came Herbert Hoover in 1928, who pledged to end poverty but eventually gifted the US 'The Great Depression'.
On similar lines, Franklin D Roosevelt graciously failed to fulfil his 1932 pledge to keep the US out of World War II when he bombed Japan. Richard Nixon promised resolutely in 1968 to 'quickly' resolve the Vietnam War, but he didn't!
The approval rating of Obama in India has dropped from 31 per cent in 2008 to 18 per cent in 2010, thanks to his policies
Let me now come to Obama's much-hyped visit to India. If numbers speak volumes, then Obama's recent approval ratings in India are not encouraging. As per the latest Gallup Poll, they have dropped from 31 per cent in 2008 to 18 per cent in 2010, thanks to the policies he has come up with recently.
He made his stand clear on India's outsourcing business and announced that tax breaks will go to companies that create jobs in the US and not overseas. On October 22, 2010 he announced a whopping $2.29 billion in military aid to Pakistan to bolster its army's anti-terror capabilities, thus ignoring India's concerns about how Pakistan diverts such assistance for anti-India plans.
If Obama's Pakistan inclination is not good enough, then let's talk about China. China has become the US' fastest-growing major overseas market with a total trade volume of $366 billion. In order to appease Beijing, Obama has transformed his Strategic Economic Dialogue into the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, thus silently taking off human rights issues from the bilateral agenda ufffd which may have soured the budding affair. This is evident from the last Asia visit of Obama, where he appointed China as the official 'monitor' of Asia and asked the country to look into the Kashmir issue.
Going by the precedence, India has no reasons to feel optimistic about Obama's visit. Our policy makers shouldn't formulate policiesu00a0 to appease Obama just out of excitement. Already, organizations like WalMart have started to lobby for a 100 per cent FDI in the Indian retail sector. And I am sure the likes of WalMart would try to push through their agendas during this visit of Obama. It is significant that the Indian policy makers see through this and take correct decisions.
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