India Insight

Barack Obama takes over as the 44th U.S. President riding the optimism of millions of people and inheriting a recession and two wars that will test his skills.

Hopes are high the 47-year-old can conjure up a rescue that will jolt the world’s biggest economy back to life and contain the financial crisis ravaging global markets.

As far as India is concerned, there are apprehensions the Obama administration may place curbs on its outsourcing industry, ban any future nuclear tests and resurrect the Kashmir question.

Some have already questioned Obama’s reported plans to appoint a South Asia envoy.

And the Asia Society has laid out a blueprint for an expanded India-U.S. relationship.

It’s not hard to see why Indians would be interested in an election thousands of miles away. Many see Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential poll as a sign that America has finally transcended the question of race and changed the course of history.

Obama may have won by a landslide in the U.S. but going by the number of Indians rooting for him at New Delhi’s American Center on Wednesday, it seemed a useless exercise to gauge his support base in India.

I was hard-pressed to find a John McCain supporter among the many students and guests thronging the lawns of the Center as election results trickled in.