I'm not sure if the rest of the world paid much attention to President Obama's question and answer session at St. Xavier's College - or "University" as he mistakenly called it - on November 7, 2010. But the Indian media ran live broadcasts of it.
Basically, United States President Barack Obama gave a short speech in front of "300 carefully selected [college] students" (The Telegraph) and spent about an hour with them, giving a short speech and then entertaining question from students. I can't say what was the selection criteria for these students from Mumbai University but they are supposed to be the best students of each college, or you could imply, the best young minds from each college, or the best college minds in India ("Selected on the basis of their academics and classroom participation, the students, dressed in suits, chudidars, T-shirts and jeans, flocked in from different strata of the society." - The Economic Times) . Unfortunately the questions were posed by an even smaller section of India's youth.
The most questions were asked by those from South Mumbai colleges (HR and St. Xavier's are in South Mumbai). Actually, this is quite fitting St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, has become a popular - and over-used - venue for events of any sort. Of course, the whole event can be criticized or taken as it is. Nothing serious could have been accomplished but it was a PR exercise. I'm not sure what the American public's reaction to the visit has been - a Google search will bury you with news items from the Indian media - but it could have been better. No, I'm not talking about the President but the students themselves. They are supposed to be the finest students of Mumbai University's academia and these are the probing questions they asked. Terrorism and jihad, as one student's question was based on, are screwy topics that lack easy, polite material for debate and are bound to offend one group or another. Thankfully, the President was as politically correct as can be. I'm surprised nobody asked him about his objectives pertaining to his visit to India, but that's because every student who got the mike didn't prepare questions beforehand and was interested in getting their shot at fame.
I'm sure President Obama "won hearts over" with his namaste, but since when do college students or Indians for that matter greet like that?
Heading over the First Lady, Michelle Obama danced better, much to the embarrassment of her hosts, who looked as if they didn't know how to shake a leg to their own beat.
For further reading try Neal Rosendorf's blog post on the University of Southern California's Public Diplomacy site.
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