Recognizing that the India-US relationship draws its strength and dynamism from shared values, the breadth and diversity of the engagement and growing links between the people of the two countries, leaders of both countries have placed promotion of closer ties between the people, private collaborations and public-private partnerships at the center of the Strategic Dialogue.
The United States and India have engaged in comprehensive regional consultations that touches on nearly every region of the world. The United States and India have a shared vision for peace, stability and prosperity in Asia, the Indian Ocean region and the Pacific region and are committed to work together, and with others in the region, for the evolution of an open, balanced and inclusive architecture.
Going along with this new direction, the Obama administration has announced that in its assessment, India has made significant progress in implementing the civil nuclear deal in the last 18 months, that it is now up to individual companies to take decisions in terms of risks and opportunities.
Indian American community had come together to campaign on US-India Nuclear deal. Numerous community organizations have played a major role in organizing town hall meetings with US lawmakers to make it happen, after the Clinton administration had placed restrictions on India after the South Asian had tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
“One of the areas we have been able to have significant breakthroughs is the civil nuclear cooperation. We have seen in the past year-and-a-half significant progress with respect to India establishing its liabilities law which are compliant with international convention on supplementary compensation,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on South Asia. India, she said, has now ratified it and is now a member of the international Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage.
“India has established an insurance pool,” she said in response to a question from Congressman Brad Sherman who wanted to have an update on the civil nuclear deal. “I think, each individual company at this point has to make its own commercial decisions in terms of risks and in terms of opportunity. I think we are starting to see companies making those decisions,” Biswal said. “It is at this point largely a commercial decision. We stand ready through the US Government, through our financing bodies to support,” the senior State Department official said. It is believed that Westinghouse Electric and Nuclear Power Co-operation India Ltd are in advance stage of talks for building six nuclear reactors in Gujarat.
Building on the progress in cooperation on counter-terrorism and related homeland security issues, the United States and India committed to implementation of a detailed action plan intended to share best practices, facilitate the exchange of operational approaches, and promote the development of concrete capacity building programs to secure our respective countries. Recognizing the growing threats and challenges in cyberspace, they welcomed the second round of Cyber Consultations held on June 4, led by their respective national security councils, during which the US and India exchanged views and best practices on a broad range of cyber issues in the interest of advancing security and the effective and timely sharing of digital evidence and information to support counter-terrorism and law enforcement.