The point is that Modi does not seem to favour the media moment over the longer term relationship being firmed up first.
You got to be kidding me right?
Modi and not favouring media moments? He is not wasting anything in that regard and he has an excellent PR team around him, which was visible since the elections. When you look at the recent foreign visits and compare the PR parts for the media, with the actual achivements on political levels, you get a pretty one sided picture. So if the helicopter deals were not cleared during the visit it was surely not because they (he and his team) didn't wanted it.
I'm reasonably certain that Modi would almost definitely not brought up this issue with Obama. Not at that level. Not happening. The deal is important but wouldn't need intervention at the highest level.
When our defence minister and the US defence secretary recently discussed it and didn't reached to a conclusion and any report expected that the issue / the procurements, the next step that is available is the PM and President meeting. And I already gave plenty examples where defence deals were fixed during meetings of the highest levels, which also wasn't that important.
That's an odd position to take. Had India signed the Apache & Chinook deals & maybe sorted out the M777 purchase, would you have considered that everything had gone on very well?
If he had signed the helicopter deal, it the visit had got us the expected result. If he got the US to even consider officially about a change of ToT/offset issues, I would have applauded it because that was a big step and even, if the final joint statement had just saying, we have discussed it and made some progress, it would had been a clear signal, but none of that happened!
This relationship is so much more than a purchase order & the PM's visit must have something more concrete.
Of course it is, but this was not the 3rd or even 5th visit of the same PM, or of the same government, but the 1st visit of a new PM from a new government and the implications of this visit has to show if things will go on as with the former government, or if there will be changes / improvements. What we have seen though, is not different than what we have seen in the past few years. Defence pact, basic support for Indias permanent UN seat, basic support on terrorism, that's it. So even if no major result was achived (which is ok at this stage), not even basic implications of a good or improving defence relation can be seen.