Rubio’s Visit Can't Hide Hard Truth About India-US Relations; Poverty Decline in India Slows Down; Wary of Beijing, Modi Government Censors Bollywood
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May 25, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
“Contrary to claims that poverty in India has been largely eliminated,” write the authors of a major new study, “we suggest that poverty decline in India has faltered and has not kept pace with progress achieved during the first decade of the century.” Specifically, write Himanshu, Peter Lanjouw and Philipp Schirmer [PDF], “all estimates indicate a significant slowing of poverty decline between 2011/12 and 2022/23 compared to the preceding decade.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in India for a visit that aims to breathe life into both the flagging bilateral relationship and the anti-China ‘Quad’ grouping – whose utility remains under question in the wake of the recent US attempt to reset ties with Beijing.
In India, Rubio defended all the moves the Trump administration has taken that have hurt India – its punitive tariffs, its crackdown on legitimate travel and work visas, its military actions in West Asia that have caused a severe disruption in the world energy and fertiliser markets – while his Indian hosts did little to set the record straight. At a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Rubio was able to duck a question about Trump’s racist ‘India is a hellhole’ social media post since the Indian journalist who asked the question was too coy or terrified to even name Trump. In this, of course, he mirrored the MEA. An American reporter asked Rubio the same question and the exchange makes for interesting reading:
