Houston:  Reacting to the gala event, US media reacted to the first time joint address by a US President and Indian Prime Minister as Trump “playing second fiddle to PM Modi.”

New York Times (NYT) has covered the ‘Howdy, Modi’ event with a tinge of criticism for President Trump and said, “At Rally for India’s Modi, Trump Plays Second Fiddle but a Familiar Tune.” In its report, NYT has written: “But never one to let a good crowd go to waste, Trump treated the giant gathering at NRG Stadium in Houston as his own, declaring that “you have never had a better friend as President than President Donald Trump that I can tell you.”

Washington Post, too, has drawn a similar comparison of the two leaders. It carried a report with the headline, “Trump plays unusual role of warm-up act at massive Modi rally in Houston”. The Post further wrote: The leaders of the world’s two largest democracies took the stage together in Houston before a roaring crowd of tens of thousands of Indian Americans, where Modi delivered an unmistakable endorsement of Trump’s Presidency and cast their joint appearance in historic terms.

BBC has covered the mega event with the headline: ‘Howdy, Modi!’: Trump hails Indian PM at ‘historic’ Texas rally. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported how the joint appearance of Modi and Trump before a strong crowd of 50,000 Indian-Americans underscores the growing strategic significance of the relationship between the two largest democracies of the world.

“The joint appearance also underscores the growing strategic significance of US-India ties. The world’s two largest democracies are a vital check on China’s ambitions to dominate the Asia-Pacific region, as Trump recognises and Barack Obama did as well,” The Wall Street Journal said in an op – ed, hours after the event got over.