AA Edit | Modi’s winning strategy in US

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already scored a series of winners even before he stepped into Washington DC as part of his state visit. Besides pulling off the Yoga Day performance at the United Nations Headquarters with aplomb, he held talks with a wide range of highly influential Americans in the Big Apple. It was clearly part of his vision for the tour that he met thought leaders and influencers while in the US which he tweeted even before leaving Indian shores.

Understandably, the meeting with the world’s most disruptive thinking entrepreneur and boss of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, Elon Musk, took most of the headlines. But Mr Modi also met economist Paul Romer, management writer Ray Dalio, activist author Robert A.F. Thurman, besides mathematician and statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Clearly prepared for impact, Mr Modi discussed the space programme and initiatives underway in India, including at Isro, with Mr Tyson who, among other insignia, has the notoriety of demoting Pluto in the solar system. In meeting Mr Taleb, the Lebanese-American essayist, Mr Modi showed how he had a black swan effect on his mind.

But it was undisputedly the matter of bringing Tesla to India, on our own terms, without giving into compulsions of importing those cars made in China, that was on top of everyone’s mind. Mr Musk gave a thumbs up endorsement to Prime Minister Modi, when he declared that he was a “big Modi fan”, but also set to rest the demons raised by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

While the address to the joint session of the United States Congress, talks with US President Joe Biden and meeting him and the First Lady at White House would be the official highlights of any state visit of an Indian PM, Mr Modi has showed that he has clearly a larger-than-life personality and, with his unimpeachable charisma, he has left an impact that will go a long way in strengthening India’s partnership with America.