NEW DELHI (Web Desk) – Indian officials explained that the tree planted by United States president Barack Obama during his visit to India three weeks ago is not dead. “It just looks dead”, government horticulturist B.C Katiyar insisted.
The peepal tree was awash in leaves when Obama planted it at the New Delhi memorial to Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi. Now it is just a single lonely stem.
That lack of leaves has been giving Indian officials sleepless nights, with the media here blasting them for allowing the tree to die less than a month after the presidential visit.
“It s a seasonal phenomenon,” B.C Katiyar, a top regional government horticulturist, said, after he and other officials visited the tree and pronounced it in good health. “It will send out shoots within the next 10 days.”
