A weekend in New York

Prime minister's two speeches give hints of his direction

In the course of his visit to the United States, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given two consequential speeches. Mr Modi, who spent many months before being elected giving speeches several times a day, no longer communicates as often as he used to, and so the speeches have been carefully analysed for possible directions that his government is going in. Four months after taking office, the government's priorities are becoming a little more clear. In foreign policy, there have been several summit meetings and some sense that a more muscular approach is being considered, but there is some uncertainty in other areas. Mr Modi's speech in the United Nations General Assembly did not completely settle that uncertainty. However, it did demonstrate, first of all, that the prime minister intends to continue down the path of firmness with Pakistan - he rebuked it for mentioning Kashmir at the United Nations, in particular. He also was very clear that "good" and "bad" terrorism was an artificial distinction - something that will not have escaped the attention of American government analysts, given that country's openness to a categorisation of "good" and "bad" Taliban.

The prime minister also spoke about climate change at the United Nations General Assembly. Many will have seen his professed concern as sounding a little odd, given that he - along with Chinese President Xi Jinping - had just refused to attend an important climate-change summit organised by the United Nations secretary-general, helping render the summit toothless. Mr Modi's words on climate change will not have reassured too many - he even went so far as to say that the lifestyle alterations, which would follow the declaration of an "International Yoga Day", would help minimise human-caused climate change. However, he did make one important signal: he praised the "beautiful balance" of "common but differentiated responsibilities" to tackle climate change - the doctrine that says the primary task to roll back emissions must be borne by historical emitters in the industrialised nations. India, which has traditionally stuck to this stand, looked close to weakening it - but it seems Mr Modi's government will return to the hard line. It will be ever harder to pull off: China is clearly an unreliable ally when it comes to climate-change negotiations, and the threat of Indian isolation is very real. In the end, the most important question remains how India's domestic action plan on climate change is progressing. And there, of course, on many criteria the progress is anaemic.

Finally, there was Mr Modi's triumphal appearance at Madison Square Garden in New York before an audience of ecstatic Indian-Americans. This speech felt like a "thank you" to United States Indians for years of solid support for Mr Modi - and the thanks were more than symbolic, with the grant of visas on arrival and exemptions from police checks. But it also contained some important points that should please observers back home. In particular, the prime minister said that he was never happier than when rolling back obsolete laws. He should have gone a step further, perhaps by promising that at least some laws should have a built-in clause requiring their extension after a certain period. And, responding to complaints that his government lacked vision, he said that his vision was that of a "small man" like the tea-seller he once was, and he wished to make it easier for other small men. He spoke also of the ease of doing business. A promise of deregulation and a vision in favour of small entrepreneurs were the biggest takeaways from this weekend in New York.