Paying tributes to democracy, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel drew parallels between his country and India and said there are few places in the world other than these two nations where a tea-seller’s son can become the Prime Minister or a Kenyan’s child can become the President.
“There are few places in the world other than India and the US where the son of a tea-seller in a small-time town can rise to be the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) or the child of a Kenyan father can rise to be the President (Barack Obama),” he said.
Before joining politics and RSS, Modi used to sell tea in trains and help his father run a tea stall in Gujarat. Obama’s father was of Kenyan origin and his mother an American citizen.