India, Aug. 13 -- Six months ago, at the White House, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi were describing each other as "great" and "dear" friends, recalling the reverberating echoes of Howdy Modi in Houston (2019) and Namaste Trump in Ahmedabad (2020), and outlined an ambitious vision of India-US relations in an over 3,000-word-long joint statement.

Even as Canada rubbished Trump's call for it to become the 51st state, Nato, Japan, and South Korea wondered about the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella, and Europeans did their best to reassure a beleaguered Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, the February visit reassured India that the Modi-Trump relationship was intact and India-US ties were on a positive trajectory....