On a brisk October morning in 1947, six nuns from Nazareth, Ky., left their convent for what they thought would be the last time. Two lines of fellow sisters in starched white bonnets silently bid them farewell, while the novices sang "My Old Kentucky Home." They were headed to Bihar, in north India, where their order had assigned them to start a mission and hospital in a small town called Mokama. They were motivated by a popular sympathy among Americans of that era for India's nonviolent struggle for independence. Sister Charles Miriam, boarding the cargo ship Steel Executive in New York City, remarked as she pulled out of sight of the Statue of Liberty, "We pray that the liberty it symbolizes be realized to the fullest degree in the land to which we're going."

As President Barack Obama prepares to make his own maiden voyage to India, the two countries are going through another period defined by shared ideals. …

Read the full article entitled, Obama's Passage to India: What He Needs to Do, By Jyoti Thottam in Time Magazine.