New York:  The year 2024 was very special in terms of India-US relations. This year many dramatic developments were also seen in America. The presidential election in America was announced in the year 2024. President Joe Biden gave up his candidature for the presidency after a poor performance in a nationally telecast debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump. Along with this, Trump narrowly escaped deadly attacks twice during the election campaign filled with bitterness and allegations.

Eventually, the Democratic Party nominated Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump. But 78-year-old Donald Trump created history by defeating Kamala Harris of Indian origin in the election. With this, his return to the White House after a gap of 4 years shattered the dreams of the Democratic Party and its millions of supporters, who were hoping to see the first woman president in the country.

Trump repeated history after 132 years

Trump became the second US President to achieve such a feat after Grover Cleveland, who returned to the post four years after leaving the presidency nearly 132 years ago. He repeated the history of his country after 132 years. Now at a time when the Biden administration is preparing to leave the White House, an official said that India-US relations are in a "very strong state" and observers expect that bilateral relations will continue to receive bipartisan support in Trump's upcoming tenure as President.

Challenges in India-US relations at the end of 2024

At the end of the year 2024, many new challenges were seen in the relations between the two countries. But still the relations remained stable. The last part of the year has also remained challenging in view of the indictment issued in the US for attempting to murder a Sikh separatist, the case related to Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and Trump's threat to impose high tariffs on Indian imports. Before the elections in the world's oldest democracy (America), voters in the world's largest democracy (India) voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a historic third term.

Modi-Trump friendship will pay off

PM Modi congratulated his "friend" Trump - the oldest person to be elected president in US history - on his "historic" victory and said he looked forward to further strengthening the comprehensive global and strategic partnership between India and the US. Modi has enjoyed strong relations with both President Biden and Trump. Both Modi and Biden hosted each other in their countries between June 2023 and September 2024. These visits underline the strong progress in bilateral ties. In June 2023, Biden hosted Modi's state visit in Washington and then in September the US President visited New Delhi for the G-20 summit. The two leaders then met in June 2024 during the G-7 summit in Italy.

PM Modi attended the Quad summit in Delaware

Three months after the G-7, PM Modi arrived in the US for the fourth summit of Quad leaders held at Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware. After the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit, Biden said that "America's partnership with India is stronger, closer and more dynamic than at any time in history." However, the relationship has also been volatile. While in 2023, the Biden administration accused Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta of being involved in a conspiracy to attempt to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannu on American soil, in October 2024, former Indian government employee Vikas Yadav was also accused by US authorities of being involved in this alleged conspiracy.

The allegations against Gautam Adani led to bitterness in the relations

In November, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged businessman Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, as well as Azure Power Global Ltd executive Cyril Cabanes, in connection with a $250 million bribery scheme. In a parallel action, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York unleashed criminal charges against Gautam and Sagar Adani, among others. The criminal indictment also charges Vineet S. Jain, Ranjit Gupta, Rupesh Agrawal, Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agrawal and Deepak Malhotra. India said it is a legal matter involving private companies and individuals and the US Department of Justice. There are established procedures and legal avenues that will be followed in such cases.

Hope for further strengthening of relations with Trump

It will be interesting to see how this matter progresses during the Trump administration. Trump has included many people of Indian origin in his administration. Vivek Ramaswami for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel as Director of the FBI, Harmeet K. Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Jay Bhattacharya as Director of the National Institutes of Health and Sriram Krishnan as Senior Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence are among the Indian-Americans who are expected to play key roles in the Trump 2.0 administration.

How will the relations between the two countries be in the future from the point of view of the officials?

On the indictments, a senior administration official said that the US-India relationship is becoming "more complex, more diverse and more intense. It is always the case that both sides will face challenges and the important thing is how we deal with them." Trump is preparing to return to the White House for his second term. Recently, he talked about imposing reciprocal tariffs in response to the "high tariffs" imposed by New Delhi on imports of some American products, which has attracted a lot of attention. The outgoing Biden administration has said that it hopes that India-US relations will remain strong even after the transfer of power in January. (Language)