It’s a good thing that the US economy is on an uptick these days, for Washington, DC is facing a depletion of stock in the friends department. After upsetting partners in east and south east Asia by obeying China’s December 2013 diktat on the no-fly zone over the Senkaku Islands, the US is now losing friends in South Asia too. India first: On January 9, the New York attorney’s office indicted Ms Devyani Khobragade, Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, of alleged visa fraud.