A former Indian diplomat believes there is room for being optimistic about the future progress of India-US summit-level decisions taken during the recent visit of President Barack Obama to New Delhi.
In article written for an Indian daily earlier this week, India's former Permanent Representative to the United Nations and now a key member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has said that while it is significant that an incumbent U.S.president has visited India twice while in office, more work needs to be done by two of the world's largest democracies to develop bilateral ties mutually acceptable and beneficial to the two governments and nations.
In his article, which has appeared in the Indian Express, Puri says, "As the world's two largest democracies, India and the US have worked over the last two decades to develop relations that have evolved steadily. There are nearly 40 dialogue mechanisms in place, demonstrating both the wide canvas and depth of the relationship."
He further states, "It is useful to set aside the hype that usually accompanies summit-level interactions of this kind and seek a clinical perspective. This necessarily requires ignoring commentators who are pathologically anti-US and those who salivate too easily at the prospect of doing business with the U.S."
The former diplomat reiterates that bilateral relations with the United States constitute one of the more important, if not the most important, bilateral relationships for India.
"Only the uninitiated or those who habitually make assessments based on flawed assumptions and a profound misreading of where the world is headed, would suggest otherwise," he adds.
"The (Obama) visit was important not only for the elevation of Indo-US ties for their own sake, but also, for the efforts at seeking convergence in areas other than bilateral, those relating to stability and security in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, particularly as reflected in the US-India joint strategic vision document," Puri says.
He is candid in admitting that managing ties between Washington and New Delhi have been anything but easy.
"The relationship has been accident prone. Ever so often, it comes to be viewed as being transactional rather than the strategic partnership it is billed to be," he says.
He says that there is a need to rescue the relationship from its lows and inject substance and content to give it traction that will generate momentum.
He believes that both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Modi have called for forging deeper ties, and adds that President Obama has gone a step further in describing the relationship as having the potential to be the defining partnership of the 21st century.
In the article, he praises Prime MInister Modi's visionary statesmanship in readily accepting the invitation to visit Washington in September 2014 and to agree to establish a contact group to rescue the India-US civilian nuclear deal, which Modi described as the cornerstone of a transformed relationship.
"That group has accomplished in four months what could not be done in four years. Still more important, this has been accomplished without the need to revisit India's domestic legislation on nuclear liability. A categorical statement to that effect from Modi, along with the assertion that what has been achieved is consistent with India's international obligations, should put at rest the continued whining and doubts of those who suggest that there has been a dilution of India's position," the formner diplomat says.
He, however, adds that, "More work, however, remains to be done. We will need to utilise the remaining two years of Obama's terms to persuade the US to do the heavy lifting required to help us achieve full membership of the Export Control Regimes, the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement."
Expressing hope for the commercial operationalisation of the bilateral civil nuclear arrangement, Puri says, "The solution found is market-based and innovative, based on international best practices to suit Indian circumstances. The government will indeed be contributing to the insurance pool for the first few years till the insurance companies are able to maintain it on their own."
"This will be an investment and the government will earn a share of the premium on this investment. The profits, if any, go to the pool, whose size will grow with time, thus assuring easy and prompt payments. The impact on the power plant's cost would be minimal. Even in the US, operators pay an average of USD one million per year per site, a small fraction of the total cost. There will be no additional burden on the Indian taxpayer. Whatever risk exists will be addressed through a risk management scheme. This is where the insurance pool becomes important," he sattes further.
He also says in his article that the renewal of the decade-old defence cooperation agreement should be seen as a significant pointer to the direction in which the two countries wish to develop relations in this particular sector and in overall terms.
However, he says, that a much greater challenge "will lie in how enhanced economic cooperation, investment and technology from foreign suppliers can be made to contribute to the "Make in India" campaign - especially since both countries want to give a boost to their manufacturing sector in an overall global climate of falling demand."
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Puri concludes by saying that with India now having a majority government for the first time in more than three decades, a change for better times can be expected.
