What Narendra Modi said in the US: The ultra-executive summary

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fourth US visit as India’s head of government was marked by two equally well-received speeches — delivered with equal amounts of punch, panache and poise. The first was at a meeting with the US-India Business Council and the second was at a joint session of the US Congress . You’ve no doubt heard how well both speeches went down and how they were greeted . But what did he actually say, you may well ask. And if you don’t want to go through the full texts or watch them in full, here’s an ‘at-a-glance’ recap: First, there was the USIBC address: [caption id=“attachment_2824972” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Word cloud created using www.wordclouds.com[/caption] And then, there was the US Congress speech: [caption id=“attachment_2824970” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Word cloud created using www.wordclouds.com[/caption] Rightly, the prime minister kept India as the focal point of both addresses. Naturally, the USIBC speech centred on the themes of ‘policies’, ‘growth’, ‘investment’ and those other things that keep the business community interested. Meanwhile, and equally naturally, the US Congress speech focused on themes like ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘partnership’ and was littered with adjectives like ‘great’ and ‘distinguished’ to bring a smile to the faces of US lawmakers. All par for the course so far. What was interesting was the emphasis on the ‘new’ that emerged during both speeches: New ideas, new policies, new partnerships, new equations, new threats and a new world. And it’s this recognition of new realities that should hold Modi and indeed the country in good stead to deal with a potentially different India-US relationship once the new American president takes office early next year.