There is no knowing right now if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming American sojourn would be climaxed by any big-time announcement, but the US point person for South Asia has spoken of a “robust agenda” for the White House meeting he will have with President Barack Obama.
After the “ups and downs” over the past year, notably the unseemly diplomatic spat following the Devyani Khobragade episode, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal believes bilateral ties are “in a much stronger place” marked by “much better understanding and awareness...of each other’s requirements”.
During a conference call, organized by the Asia Society, Biswal sketched the agenda for the Obama-Modi talks and the official delegations in broad terms in areas ranging from energy supply to trade issues, health, science and technology and security cooperation, without going into details.
“This is a historic time for the US and India to re-energize our relationship,” Biswal said in a Twitter post ahead of the conference call.
“While we did go through a fairly tough time earlier in the year (following the Khobragade episode), we are now in a much stronger place than even we were before that incident in terms of how we work together,” she commented.
For more than a year prior to Modi’s assumption of reins, US-India relations were widely reckoned to be in a state of drift, despite the great personal equation between President Obama and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
To make up for its shunning of Modi for close to a decade, the US has gone to great lengths in recent months to reach out to the BJP leader that included visits by Secretary of State John Kerry, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
Yet, there appears to be no “transformational initiative” in the works like the landmark civil nuclear deal that was forged during the Bush administration. Biswal conceded this, but stressed: “We are feeling very good about the (Modi) visit and very good about the opportunity.” Given America’s cutting edge technology and something that interests Modi, Biswal says the US would certainly bring a lot to the relationship, adding: “We will have some of the few specific things that we are going to be talking about and watching with respect to the visit.”
Weak implementation of the nuclear deal and locking horns over several trade issues have contributed to the lows in the relationship over the past couple of years. But Biswal believes there is now a “strong desire” to work through these issues with renewed efforts and commitment from both sides.