WolfPack86
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 10,498
- Likes
- 16,938
Highlights
Both governments are exploring plans for Modi to travel to Washington DC.
As reports have come in about a proposed cut in H-1B visas for high-tech professionals, India and the US have also begun quiet talks to get a better understanding of each other’s positions.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump could have their first meeting as early as May, as both governments explore plans for Modi to travel to Washington DC.
Modi and Trump would anyway have an opportunity to meet on the sidelines of the next G-20 summit in Hamburg, but that would be in a multilateral setting.
Sources said both governments are keen to have an early bilateral meeting. Modi and Trump had an early conversation after Modi called him to congratulate him on his victory. In recent weeks, Modi and Trump have had another longer talk on the phone, which touched upon issues of importance to both countries — defense and security, economics and trade etc.
James Mattis, the US defense secretary, has held his first conversation with defense minister Manohar Parrikar, while the new secretary of state Rex Tillerson spoke to Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.
National security adviser Mike Flynn, who had to quit recently, had already met Ajit Doval in the early days of the Trump administration when Doval visited him in Washington. The Mattis-Parrikar conversation was keenly watched for signals on how the Trump administration might want to proceed with the defence-security relationship which has increased substantively.
An official readout of the conversation said: "Secretary Mattis and minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustaining the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include defense technology and trade initiative." In their conversation, Sushma and Tillerson "emphasized that close and strong relations between India and the US were not only of mutual interest but also had regional and global significance. In this context, they agreed to intensify cooperation in various sectors, including defense and security, energy, and economy," an official statement said.
As reports have come in about a proposed cut in H-1B visas for high-tech professionals, India and the US have also begun quiet talks to get a better understanding of each other's positions and ways to resolve what might become a hurdle in the relationship.
However, with domestic politics in the US becoming increasingly acrimonious, it has lent a degree of uncertainty to everything.
Addressing a geo-economic dialogue earlier this week in Mumbai, foreign secretary S Jaishankar cautioned that the world should not "demonize" Trump, but "analyze" him.
The Trump phenomenon, he said, is no passing whim of US electoral politics, but part of a much larger change globally. Later this month, India will see two different congressional delegations, from both Republican and Democrat ends of the aisle visiting India. The two groups of 19 and eight congressmen will visit New Delhi and Hyderabad and Bangalore, and be possibly one of the largest congressional delegations to visit India. The congressmen will get a first-hand experience of the Indian high-tech industry and their activities in the US. This is in the context of the three legislations introduced in the US Congress to curb entry of technology professionals.
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2017/02/pm-could-head-to-us-to-meet-trump-in-may.html