'Obama should...': ex-USCIRF commissioner on former US President's India under Modi remark

Former president Barack Obama should spend his energy complimenting India more than criticizing it, according to a former commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Johnnie Moore.

"I think the former president (Obama) should spend his energy complimenting India, more than criticizing India. India is the most diverse country in human history. It's not a perfect country, just like the United States, it's not a perfect country, but its diversity is its strength, and we should be complimenting the largest democracy in the world every chance that we can, that we have," Moore, an evangelical leader, in an interview with ANI said.

Moore's remarks come in the wake of an interview by Obama to CNN recently in which the former US President was cited as saying that Biden should raise the religious freedom issue with India, as he would have done had he still been the US president.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Obama said if India does not protect the rights of ethnic minorities, there is a strong possibility at some point that the country starts pulling apart. Obama also told CNN interviewer Christiane Amanpour that if President Joe Biden meets with PM Modi, "the protection of the Muslim minority in a majority Hindu India is something worth mentioning".