US President Joe Biden hailed US-India ties, while rolling out the pomp and pageantry for visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.
This included marching bands, a lavish vegetarian dinner and a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House.
Mr Modi, who is on a state visit, also addressed the US Congress, where he received a standing ovation.
The US, which denied a visa to Mr Modi over human rights concerns before he was PM, now sees him as a crucial ally.
Washington has long viewed India as a counterbalance to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific, although Delhi has never been fully comfortable with owning the tag.
When addressing Congress, Mr Modi did not mention China by name, although he mentioned “dark clouds of coercion and confrontation casting their shadow over the Indo-Pacific”.
Mr Modi also did not mention Russia or who started the war, saying instead, “With the Ukraine conflict, war has returned to Europe”.
India has so far not directly criticised Russia, which analysts say is largely due to its huge dependency on Russian defence and oil imports and its “time-tested ties” with Moscow.
This has strained relations between Washington and Delhi but Mr Biden chose to focus on the positive, saying ties between the two countries were stronger than ever. He went as far as to call it “one of the defining relationships of the 21st Century”.
Mr Modi agreed, telling the US Congress that this was a coming together of the world’s two great democracies. He also said that the friendship between the two countries would be “instrumental in enhancing the strength of the whole world”. (BBC)
