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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached Washington aiming to reclaim and restore what he can of a prime ministerial legacy he had hoped would emulate his success over two decades ago as India’s finance minister. Transforming the India-US relationship by staking his government’s ...
survival on the India-US civil nuclear cooperation deal and improved, normal ties with neighbours, including Pakistan, were the two prime objectives of what he hoped would be his legacy. During this visit, where he will meet the American President and the Pakistani (and Bangladeshi and Nepali) Prime Minister, Singh will address both vital concerns.
During his meeting with President Barack Obama on Friday, Singh will hope to re-orient his host’s focus back to the making the India-US relationship a truly “transformational” one. The bilateral relationship, the Prime Minister said as he left for the USA, has "transformed into a global strategic partnership."
Never mind all the dissonant sounds emerging from both capitals; from Washington, related to the flagging economy, lack of transparency and reform in the economic environment and inability of the bilateral civil nuclear cooperation deal to yield any concrete results for the US, while New Delhi has major concerns related to investments, technology transfers, immigration hurdles, and Afghanistan.
The Indian P.M. will also urge the US President to move towards reducing hostilities with Iran and opt for the diplomatic option, while reducing crippling sanctions on that country, which have also hurt India’s efforts at energy security. He will stress on the vital importance of Iran’s cooperation in the post 2014 scenario in Afghanistan.
Never mind that a US Congressional committee has convened a hearing on economic conditions in India just ahead of the crucial summit meeting.
“For India, the US remains a key source of technology, investment, innovation and resources, and one of the most important destinations for our goods and services,” Prime Minister Singh said while departing for the USA. “We have productive and deepening partnerships in trade and investment, defence, counter-terrorism, intelligence, internal security, cyber security, civil nuclear energy, environment, health, higher education, space, science and technology and culture,” he said.
According to reports out of Washington, Senator Mark Warner, Co-Chair of Senate India Caucus and Chairman of Senate Banking Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance, will chair the hearing entitled "Assessing the Investment Climate and Improving Market Access in Financial Services in India," on Wednesday. The hearing will examine US-India economic relations, which will be at the forefront of the Indian Prime Minister's working visit to the White House.
The hearing would reportedly focus on regulatory and statutory barriers to foreign direct investment in the Indian banking and insurance industry, prospects for liberalisation of market access for the financial services industry, and opportunities to increase bilateral investments between the US and India.
As a sop to critics of the ground-breaking civil nuclear agreement, a ‘pre- early works agreement’ is due for signing between the Indian company that manages the functioning of all nuclear power reactors, NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd), and the US company Westinghouse (now taken over by Japan), so that talks can proceed for the establishment of six 1000MW nuclear power reactors in Gujarat.
The pre-early works agreement will be the first with a US company since the Indian PM staked his government on a civil nuclear pact with the US five years ago, and comes amid a domestic controversy over the liability of foreign suppliers.
However, in the specific case of the Westinghouse deal, the issue of liability will be dealt with later. This deal does not involve putting in place nuclear equipment, but only outlines guidelines for civil works, official sources in the Indian government said.
American, Russian and French nuclear power supplier companies have been urging India to bring its domestic legislation more in line with international norms and grant foreign companies greater protection from liabilities in case of a nuclear disaster. Having suffered the outrage of the Bhopal gas leak tragedy, it is unlikely the Indian government will acquiesce to those demands.
Prime Minister Singh will focus on clearing hurdles in implementation of the nuclear deal (including ways to work around India’s tough domestic civil nuclear liability act, so that it doesn’t block foreign companies) ways of boosting defence and trade ties, and the situation in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US-led forces next year. New Delhi is very wary of Washington’s seeming desperation to talk to the Taliban and rely on the Pakistan military.
The summit-level meeting, Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said, “will reaffirm political commitment to the ongoing effort on both sides to intensify our strategic partnership.”
India and the United States have intensive dialogues ongoing on 33 different issues.
The summit meeting “will focus in particular on reviewing our bilateral cooperation, touching upon the key pillars,” The Indian FS said, of energy, security, trade and economic relations and strategic consultations.
Besides clean energy and an expanding partnership in hydrocarbons, “both sides will review progress in implementation of the civil nuclear initiative that is a pillar of our strategic partnership,” the F.S. said.
The security aspect of the dialogue will focus on jointly working to improve counter-terrorism cooperation, including intelligence sharing and capacity building in policing of large cities, and deepening the defence relationship, “beyond a buyer-seller relationship to a joint partnership in design, development and production of defence material,” she said.
“Trade and economic relations is a key pillar of the relationship, with a combined total of US$ 100 billion in goods and services trade,” she said.
The two governments have wide-ranging strategic consultations on a host of regions, including East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia, as well as trilateral dialogues with Afghanistan and Japan, the FS said.
While a great deal is not expected to emerge from the visit in terms of deliverables, the atmospherics will be important to reduce some of the discordant noises.