INDIA-OBAMA/TOWN HALL Obama touches on global security, religious freedom and women's rights in India visit speech

Record ID: 1374177

  • Title: INDIA-OBAMA/TOWN HALL Obama touches on global security, religious freedom and women's rights in India visit speech
  • Date: 27th January 2015
  • Summary: OBAMA WAVING TO AUDIENCE/WALKS ACROSS STAGE OBAMA BEING JOINED ON STAGE BY HIS WIFE, MICHELLE OBAMA/OBAMAS WALKING OFF STAGE TOGETHER OBAMA SURROUNDED BY WELL-WISHERS VARIOUS OF OBAMA GREETING WELL-WISHERS
  • Embargoed: 12th February 2015 07:56
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8XRS239RS3NEKQIYNXGITG6VR
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS A WHITE FLASH IN LIEU OF CUTAWAYS
    U.S. President Barack Obama touched on global security, women's rights and one of India's most sensitive topics as he wound up a visit on Tuesday (January 27), making a plea for freedom of religion to be upheld in a country where relations between Hindus and minorities have come under strain.
    The U.S. president's visit has been widely seen as a bid to forge a relationship that will help balance China's rise by catapulting democratic India into the league of major world powers.
    In a speech on Tuesday, Obama described the relationship between India and the United States as potentially one of the defining partnerships of the century.
    " I believe that if we're going to be true global partners then our two nations must do more around the world together. So to ensure national security and peace multi-lateral institutions created in the 20th century have to be updated for the 21st century. And that's why I support a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member," he said.
    Praising the non-violence tenets of Mahatma Gandhi, Obama touched during his town hall speech on the treatment of women.
    "When a girl goes to school it doesn't just open up her young mind, it benefits all of us because maybe someday she'll start her own business or invent new technology or cure a disease. And when women are able to work families are healthier, communities are wealthier and entire countries are more prosperous and when young women are educated then their children are going to be
    well-educated and have more opportunity," he said.
    Obama made no direct reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose rise to power last year has emboldened some Hindu groups to assert themselves in a country with a history of religious strife.
    However, he called for religious tolerance to be upheld and condemned those who use religion to justify violence.
    "Around the world we've seen intolerance and violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to be standing up for their faith but in fact are betraying it. No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men, and too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God," he said.
    On Monday (January 27) Obama became the first U.S. president to attend India's annual Republic Day parade, a show of military might that has been associated with Cold War anti-Americanism.
    Obama's presence at the parade signals Modi's willingness to end India's traditional reluctance to get too close to any big power. Instead, he is seeking close ties with them all, even as he pushes back against China and take sides on other global issues.
    During the visit, the two sides sealed a clutch of deals to unlock billions of dollars in nuclear trade and deepen defence ties, and Obama pledged $4 billion in investments and loans to release what he called the "untapped potential" of a partnership between the world's largest democracies.
    Most significant was an agreement on issues that, despite a groundbreaking 2006 pact, had stopped U.S. companies from setting up nuclear reactors in India and had become one of the major irritants in bilateral relations.
    Obama said the United States would stand first in line for the trade and investment opportunities that will spring from the economic reform drive under Modi.
  • Copyright Holder: ANI (India)
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