This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 28th, 2003.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Indian Prime Minister Nerengra Modi's visit to the United States was notable for a few reasons, according to Cato's Swami I. is war in Ukraine, and India's relationships with Russia and China are stronger than US

policy makers would like. We spoke earlier this week. Can you characterize the

general concerns between India and the United States that the

Renger Modi and Joe Biden were trying to either smooth over or get some clarity on?

Well, Mr. Modi was over in a peculiar circumstance.

He is looking forward to a general election next year.

He wants to project himself to the Indian audience as a big world leader and

even Mr Biden is going out of his way to pat him on the back and say what a great

leader he is.

So that is the Indian angle.

Within that, we have the situation

while both of them are saying,

you know, we are great partners and we love each other. The fact is

that on something as critical as Ukraine, India absolutely refused to condemn the

Russian invasion. After that India became the biggest buyer of Russian oil

because you know we didn't want to pay high prices. So you have a situation

actually where India has kicked the United States in the face on Ukraine.

Even so, Mr. Biden has gone out of his way to say that, you know, we are going to be friends and we are going to be partners.

And why is this?

It is because India is a rising economic power, 1.4 billion people, third highest GDP in the world in purchasing power terms,

...