US Secretary of State John Kerry, who today left for New Delhi with a stop-over in Qatar, received a letter from two powerful lawmakers - the Co-Chairs of the Senate India Caucus - supporting concerns of American businesses communities about India's trade policies.
Senators Mark Warner (Democratic party) and John Cornyn (Republican Party), who are co-chairs of the powerful Senate India Caucus - the largest country specific Caucus in the US Senate - in a letter urged Kerry to strongly raise the concerns of the US businesses with regard to the alleged "discriminatory" trade practises and policies of the Indian government, which is badly affecting American jobs.
Joining the chorus of more than 250 lawmakers from both the parties including at least 40 Senators on the issues of intellectual property protection, local content and taxation, Warner and Cornyn - who have been great advocate of India-US ties so far - expressed frustration on the non-implementation of the civil nuclear deal, besides raising issues of foreign direct investments in key sectors of Indian economy like defence.
"These policies give Indian domestic corporations an unfair advantage over competitors and appear to violate India's obligations in the World Trade Organisation," Warner and Cornyn wrote in a joint letter to Kerry today - the day the top American diplomat left for his 10-day seven nation Asia trip including India from June 23-25.
In New Delhi, he will co-chair the fourth annual India US Strategic Relations with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.
"There are several areas that require progress to help realise the potential of the bilateral relationship. We must continue to make inroads on modifying the defence offset regime, since the Government of India's Defence Procurement Procedures mandates that purchases of US equipment require 30 percent of the contract value to be invested in Indian defence industries," the two Senators said in the letter.
Warner and Cornyn expressed their deep frustration over the non-implementation of the landmark US-India civil nuclear agreement announced in 2005.
"Eight years later, the agreement has not been implemented, and we have yet to see India provide a workable nuclear liability agreement that will allow nuclear companies to move forward. We need to finish what we started and realise the full commercial potential of this important agreement," they said.
