Friendship, Warily
February 13, 2010 / Bruce Stokes
National Journal
The United States and India have become closer than at any time in recent history. But two magnets can repel as well as attract.
NEW DELHI-The effects of a decade of unprecedented economic growth are strikingly evident to repeat visitors to India's capital. The elevated highway from the airport, under construction for years, is almost complete, bypassing choked secondary roads. Far fewer cows graze on downtown medians. And everyone, it seems, is jabbering on a cellphone, running the gamut from a businessman in his chauffeur-driven Ambassador sedan to a schoolgirl in an auto rickshaw. But a far more important transformation has also occurred in the Indian psyche, one that portends a promising new era in Indo-American relations.



