India and the United States will give extraordinary importance to their relations despite the fact that which political party is in power in both the nations, said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Speaking at the Public Affair Forum of India's (PAFI) national forum of India 2020, Tharoor said: "India-US relationship has reached a level where whether it's Republican or Democratic administration in the US, or whether it's BJP or Congress government in India, both countries will give extraordinary importance to the relations for two obvious reasons which include we have absolute geopolitical compatibility there are no major issues in which our interests are opposite and of course the secondary is a fact that as long as we both are functional democracies we have an interest in ensuring up each other in our respective roles." Tharoor's remark comes ahead of the US Presidential elections, which will take place on November 3.
Stressing that India has been more of a "rule taker" than a "rule maker" at the United Nations, he said the country needs to fix its domestic issues, including that of the economy, and have "moral authority" if it wants to be a rules contributor to the world.
"Now we have unfortunately been going through a few very bad years domestically in terms of crumbling social cohesion, the eruption and uncontrollable spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the border troubles with China, the economic collapse after demonetisation, unemployment figures worst recorded in the history in these years, everything is wrong," he said.
He asserted that India must use its capacity to demand constructive changes in global governance.
On being asked that Indian-American people do not send money back home for charities, Tharoor said, "I have seen members of American-born generation sending out in large numbers to support and even contribute to a number of originations and charities that are working in India, for example, Pratham and ASHA and they raise money without any difficulty and they do so in significant numbers from Americans." "My own children grew up in America from the age of five and still live there. They both contribute very generously to Indian causes," he added.
