THE US is looking forward to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's second visit to the country next month and there is 'excitement' in Silicon Valley over the potential of a technology partnership between the two nations during his trip, a senior American diplomat has said.
Assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs Nisha Desai Biswal said the months ahead will be a 'very intense time' in US-India relations as the two countries inaugurate the strategic and commercial dialogue in September in Washington.
'We are very much looking forward to Prime Minister Modi's return visit to New York' as well his visit to Silicon Valley, the second ever visit on an Indian Prime Minister to California later in September, Biswal said in her talk on US-India relations at the Consulate General of India's Media-India Lecture Series in New York on Tuesday (August 4).
She said California is 'abuzz with anticipation and excitement' over the tremendous opportunity Modi's visit to the state brings.
Secretary of state John Kerry and secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker 'are very much looking forward' to hosting India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the whole Indian delegation this fall and 'work is already underway' to make that a increasingly 'significant and consequential' engagement between the two countries.
Biswal, who travelled to California last week, said there is a 'buzz' in Silicon Valley about the prime minister’s anticipated visit 'because we know that one of the things that brings the US and India closer 'is our culture of innovation and entrepreneurship'.
She said: 'There is a lot of excitement that the potential of a technology partnership between our two countries can really bring about a new growth model that focuses on innovation, technology to usher in cleaner, more efficient, sustainable and inclusive models of growth for both countries.'
Biswal noted that during her visit to Silicon Valley last week, she noticed that entrepreneurs, scientists and investors are exploring new technologies that will power solutions to the big challenges.
'India is a development laboratory for very cutting edge new ways of tackling old challenges,' she added.
Underlining the tremendous potential between India and the US to increase bilateral cooperation across a range of sectors, Biswal said two-way trade has tripled in the past decade from $36 billion in 2005 to over $100 billion in 2014-15.
'Our two leaders have set us on a more ambitious trajectory, calling for a quadrupling to 500 billion dollars in two-way trade in the coming years.
'We are ambitious but we are bullish that that ambition is going to realised,' she added.
Noting the tremendous growth potential in the defense sector and space science, she said the two countries are not content to just 'rest on our record of accomplishment'.
'If you look at the ambitions of the American President and the Indian Prime Minister in terms of where they want to go with this relationship, I think it has charted a very, very ambitious path and the past year of engagement between our two leaders and between the two governments is indicative of the deep value that each places on this elationship.'
For the US-India strategic partnership, 'we recognise that a strong and prosperous India will be a stronger partner regionally and globally as we tackle common challenges and strive to achieve shared goals,' she added.
Biswal stressed that the two nations have a 'core strategic interest' in each other’s economic prosperity and that is why President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Modi decided last January to elevate the strategic dialogue into a strategic and commercial dialogue.
'We have set ourselves on a fairly ambitious path to look at the economic partnership to find ways to overcome the constraints and the obstacles and to unleash the power and the potential,' she said.
