A Packed Menu for the Obama-Singh Summit

When the President hosts India's Prime Minister in Washington, the agenda will include the recession, trade, farm prices, and terrorism

By Mehul Srivastava

After spending over a week crossing Asia, President Barack Obama might be ready to take a well-earned break from the region. Instead, Obama is about to get out the dinner jacket and meet yet another Asian leader. The President and First Lady Michelle Obama host their first state dinner in a giant tent on the White House lawn on Nov. 24 for the Prime Minister of India. Thanksgiving might be just days away, but you can bet turkey won't be on the menu: The guests of honor, Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gurcharan Kaur, are both vegetarians,

The dinner table conversation will probably be erudite: Singh studied economics at Oxford, and having rescued India from the brink of financial ruin in 1991, might just have a tip or two for Obama. But it's the behind-the-scenes negotiations that will decide whether this high-powered summit between the two leaders of the world's biggest democracies will be a gab fest or a meaningful engagement.

Indians will be watching closely to see how their leader's visit compares with Obama's meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. For Obama, the China visit didn't yield any immediate fruit. Critics blasted him for not making any progress in getting Beijing to allow its currency, the yuan, to appreciate against the dollar, although the Administration's defenders argue the President sowed the seeds for future progress on issues such as trade, currency, and the environment.

Placating Pakistan

Relations with India are potentially just as fraught politically, given the double-digit unemployment rate in the U.S. and American unhappiness about jobs getting outsourced to Bangalore and other Indian cities. In his meeting with Singh, Obama will also likely try to deepen a relationship with India without alienating Pakistan, an ally in America's fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Both leaders might be more than a little preoccupied, though. Indian media reported that Singh spent two hours on the phone on Nov. 23 dealing with a crisis back home, where the leaked results of a 17-year judicial inquiry into the 1992 destruction of an historic mosque by Hindu right-wingers seemed to damn his opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The leak of the report is illegal, and has caused a furor in India's Parliament. Meanwhile, Obama faces the health-care debate in the Senate and a decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. India's Singh, speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations on Nov. 23, said the U.S. should show resolve. "It is vitally important that all major regional and international players put their weight behind the government of Afghanistan," Singh said. "This is the only way Afghanistan can meet the daunting challenges it faces."

The state visit also comes just before the anniversary of the Nov. 26, 2008, siege of two luxury hotels and a Jewish center in Mumbai by 10 Pakistani terrorists, an occasion that has forced Singh to reassure Indians that the country is engaging profitably with Pakistan. Islamabad so far has refused to arrest some of the men who New Delhi says are responsible for the attack. "[The Pakistanis] have not done enough," said Singh in a televised interview on Nov 22. "Terror elements…are moving around freely."

Agricultural Tariffs

Still, American and Indian officials are hoping for progress on such issues as bilateral trade. The meetings in Washington will cap off months of talks between U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma over intellectual-property rights and tariffs in areas like agriculture. "There's no deadline, but we certainly hope to sign something soon," says Sharma. "Without these agreements, there is always the danger that the [global] recession could continue longer."

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