Rahul Gandhi Sees No Major Shift in India-US Relations

Washington DC, September 11 :
Congress member and Lok Sabha leader Rahul Gandhi addressed the future of India-US relations, particularly strategic alliances, during his speech at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

"Two parts are involved. First, I'd like to highlight the importance of defense collaboration, which I believe we excel at. The second, which I briefly mentioned before, is that China has presented us with an image of production and affluence in an undemocratic setting. How shall we react? Can we really sit back and let China become the world's leading producer without taking any action? Or is there a response already? Tell me how we will react to the Belt and Road initiative. Not that I can detect. Therefore, that is the direction that US-India cooperation should take, in my opinion. To what extent can we offer a global, democratic model of production and manufacturing? Also, I see a great potential because the two nations each have something unique to offer. You know, I don't see a major shift in the relationship between India and the US. I don't think we'll be making many course corrections... That makes sense to me. "It is widely acknowledged by all parties involved that the relationship between India and the United States is of utmost importance to both nations," he stated.

“No, I don’t think we see it as anything to do with the BJP’s policies,” he responded when asked whether the Congress believes the caste census is the antidote to the BJP-RSS Hindutva politics and if the Congress acknowledges the resuscitation of the Mandal-Kamandal as the way forward. Since long before India's independence, our party, the Congress, has battled for the principle that our nation ought to be equitable and that every person needs to be treated with dignity and respect. It is our firm belief that involvement is severely lacking, and we intend to rectify this situation. For me, it's not a Mandal versus. Kamandal thing. What we're proposing is also distinct from the concept of reservations alone. What we mean is that we need to know everything about the situation before we can implement any policies to fix it, and one of those policies is the reservation policy. Someone said I oppose reservations yesterday, but they misquoted me. Reservations will go up by more than 50%.

"We raised it and they also spoke to us," Rahul Gandhi said when asked if legislators at Capitol Hill meetings discussed Bangladesh. Listen, we demand an end to all forms of violence. The government of Bangladesh should put a stop to it without delay. For our part, we expect our government to exert pressure for an end to violence.