With three summit meetings between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi within the space of just about a year and numerous high-level official interactions, the United States believes “enormous progress” has been made in bilateral relations since the advent of Modi.
“I think there’s been enormous progress in US-India relations, and certainly since Prime Minister Modi came into office,” State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
As the relationship continues to grow and deepen at the diplomatic and security levels, Kirby said the US looks forward to the ties becoming more productive, adding: “I think everybody has every expectation that it will.”
In the run-up to the latest Obama-Modi summit meeting, held in New York about a fortnight ago on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, the Obama administration had hosted the first expanded US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue that brought External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Power Minister Piyush Goyal to Washington for intensive deliberations.
On climate change, Kirby welcomed India’s contributions in dealing with this challenge and said Washington looks forward to working closely with New Delhi to achieve the goals on climate change and clean energy initiatives.
Meanwhile, India’s ambitious plan to cut its emission levels by 33-35 per cent over the next 15 years has won praise from the reputed British weekly, The Economist.
lauding the Modi Government’s initiative, the publication noted that it would be unfair to fault India for setting a relative rather than an absolute target, given the country’s development challenges.