US Senate Rejects Bill On Special Status For India, Proposed After Modi-Obama Talks

The US senate failed to recognize India as a “global strategic and defense partner” of the USA in an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act moved by the Republican Senator John McCain. This Act, if passed, would have helped India acquire advanced military technology, participate in combined military planning and be treated like the ‘closest defense partner’ of the US.

Just a day before this amendment was moved, our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi received a lot of accolades both in India and the USA for his balanced speech addressed to the US Congress. Many opined that multiple standing ovations were a sign of India’s positioning as one of the most trusted allies of America.

But none of these speculations yielded any result as the US Congress made it very clear that it did not want to give India any special status and recognize it as its global strategic and defense partner. McCain expressed disappointment over this refusal of offering this status to India and expressed it in a statement without mentioning any specific incident. He said, “I regret that the Senate was unable to debate and vote on several matters critical to our national security, many of which enjoyed broad bipartisan support.”