TALKING POINTS: WHEN MODI MEETS OBAMA

US MAY BRING UP

Trade and intellectual property rights that have been a major US concern, specially concerning medicines in recent months.

Economic reforms, which the US has pressed for, but with dimming prospects. Modi’s party has said it’s against multi-brand retail, and economists close to the Modi govt have said other reforms — in banking and insurance, for instance — are low down on this government’s priority list.

There has been no progress on the nuclear deal.

INDIA MAY BRING UP

US pullout from Afghanistan: India wants the US to leave behind a substantial presence to prevent the country from slipping back into the kind of chaos that turned it into haven for terrorists as once before.

If the US must reform its immigration system, the issue of highly skilled workers on H-1B visas and those on intra-company transfers, L-1, must be kept out of it as a trade issue, not immigration.

EX-PMs AT THE US PRESS CLUB

If Modi agrees, he will become the first BJP PM to address a news conference at the press club.

Nehru was the first prime minister to visit the club, in 1949 and in 1961. Indira Gandhi was there thrice. Morarji Desai (1978), Rajiv Gandhi (1982) and Manmohan Sigh (2005) were the others.

The first BJP PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, never went to the club.