Is this news?

One of the newspaper headlines highlighted on a major Indian news portal on Sunday states "US says India destined to be a nation of global influence". Now my question is what makes this headline news? Haven't we heard such platitudes enough times? Do we need to keep flashing these in a vain attempt to massage our national ego even though we know our country hasn't really gained in influence or earned much leverage over other nations in the past few years? Why do we need these patronising pats on the head from the superpower? To me it's disgraceful that we feel these comments significant enough to flash as a headline. And the fact that such articles continue to appear is also proof of the lack of initiative and imagination in Indian journalism today. Actually it reads like something regurgitated from a press handout.

Just a few days ago we were speaking to an Indian friend who has been living in Canada for the past few years. He was telling us about how angry the Indian community here was after the terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008. He said Indians here couldn't understand why New Delhi didn't use its influence to aggressively pursue those responsible for the strikes. I asked him what influence he was talking about. That's when it became clear that we Indians seem to credit our nation with more leverage than it actually enjoys on the world stage. Other nations might hear us out patiently, but it's clear that they don't take us seriously enough to do our bidding.

Anyway, news items such as the one I've referred to might make our foreign office mandarins feel they've accomplished something. But I don't think they're fooling thinking Indians into believing that their nation has actually gained in influence. If anything, such patronising remarks should make us feel slighted. After all, we've been hearing them for decades.