Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti attends the ninetieth Anniversary of the Hollywood Christmas Parade on Nov. 27, 2022 in Hollywood, California.

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Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti attends the ninetieth Anniversary of the Hollywood Christmas Parade on Nov. 27, 2022 in Hollywood, California.

Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

MUMBAI, India — Across India, just about all of the headlines about Eric Garcetti’s affirmation embody one key phrase: “Finally.”

A divided U.S. Senate late Wednesday confirmed Garcetti, a former mayor of Los Angeles, as the subsequent U.S. ambassador to India. The vote was 52-42.

Washington had left its ambassador job in India vacant for 26 months – the longest stretch within the historical past of U.S.-Indian relations.

The hole got here at a time of rising international tensions, and regardless of U.S. and Indian leaders saying they’ve turn into nearer companions than ever earlier than. “Among the closest we have on Earth,” President Biden told Prime Minister Narendra Modi final yr.

India is the world’s most populous democracy, and Washington typically sees it as a bulwark in Asia in opposition to a rising, authoritarian China, with which India shares a greater than 2,000-mile border. Any day now, demographers say India will overtake China because the world’s most populous nation as effectively.

But whereas the U.S. and India share some strategic targets, they don’t seem to be treaty allies, and have their variations. Just one instance: Delhi has maintained ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, regardless of his invasion of Ukraine. Modi met with Putin in September, calling their international locations’ friendship “unbreakable,” and his authorities continues to purchase Russian oil and weapons.

The final U.S. ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster, left on Jan. 20, 2021. The following July, President Biden nominated Garcetti, a fellow Democrat, to interchange him.

But Garcetti’s nomination was held up amid questions of what he knew – and when – about sexual harassment allegations in opposition to considered one of his former prime advisors at Los Angeles City Hall.

Three fellow Democrats voted in opposition to Garcetti’s nomination. But he in the end received over sufficient Republicans, a few of whom defined their votes by saying India is simply too necessary of a diplomatic publish to depart vacant any longer. One called it a “national security imperative.”

“At long last,” read the beginning of an article Thursday about Garcetti within the Times of India.