German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gesture after a
press conference following talks in Berlin, on May 30, 2017 (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Indian social media accounts were buzzing in May after a photo emerged of Prime Minister Narendra Modi offering his hand for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to shake, only for Merkel to reject it with a pointed finger.
The amused realized that Merkel, speaking with Modi at the G-20 Summit, was simply pointing him to where cameramen had setup for a photoshoot, the same mistake Modi made with Merkel three years earlier. The furious, however, saw it as an insult. Some extrapolated it to be an indication of how Europe’s informal leader views India.
Others questioned, wrongly, why Germany’s media had ignored Modi’s visit. It hadn’t. The German news portal Deutsche Welle published at least four reports before and during Modi’s visit. And most of Germany’s leading publications covered his visit. But it was certainly an aberration: Modi’s visit to Germany in 2015 garnered less media coverage than this year’s trip. The feeling that India gets overlooked by Europe, including by the continent’s media, is not unfounded, especially when compared to the coverage China receives.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidh...seat-to-china-in-media-coverage/#4801e5024c31