New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar Monday said the American media was not aware about the fact that Article 370 was a temporary provision of the Indian Constitution and were ideological in their reporting of it.
Addressing a gathering of American businesses under the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), Jaishankar said the American “English-speaking liberal media” posed a challenge and hence he had made an effort to clear the doubts about the Modi government’s efforts to scrap Article 370 by addressing some of the think-tanks in Washington during his trip there.
“This is India’s internal business,” he said. “Our neighbours made a bit of a fuss about it. Our initial focus was to explain it to different governments and make them understand what this was about.”
He said since the US media were very ideological about it, they had “strong preset views about this subject and I think in many ways they didn’t present a fair picture. Media didn’t present the picture that it was a temporary provision”.
“There were development obstacles in Kashmir. The cost of business was much higher,” he added. “Article 370 narrowed the scope for business and raised the cost of business, which meant there were less development.”
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‘US will be technological leader of the world’
Jaishankar said he believes the US will be the technological leaders of the world in the foreseeable future.
He said India will have to focus on developing itself in human development index in order to be able to have a leadership position in the world as well as improving ties with the US.
“We have a lot a of hyphenated Americans but I would still say Indian-Americans are a category by themselves,” he said, adding that the US-India relationship is bigger than the governments and that everybody had a stake in it.
“The backbone of this relationship is business and people,” he added.
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