Devyani spat is past, two US teams to visit India in February

NEW DELHI: Nea rly one-and-a-half months after a visiting US Congressional delegation was refused an audience by top political leaders and officials in the backdrop of Devyani Khobragade’s arrest, two senior US officials -- Chief of Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) and Head of US Export-Import (EXIM) Bank -- will be in India on back to back visits in early February – hoping to give momentum to bilateral dialogues affected by the unsavory episode.

Coming close on the heels of USFDA’s decision to impose ban on Ranbaxy laboratories from shipping drugs and raw ingredients from Toansa plant in Punjab to the US markets, the visit of FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg will be crucial. Last Thursday US FDA notified Ranbaxy Laboratories that it is prohibited from manufacturing and distributing active pharmaceutical ingredients from its facility in Toansa for FDA-regulated drug products.

India is among top food and drugs exporters to the United States. Hamburg’s visit will be critical to boost this partnership, diplomatic sources pointed out. Besides this, the trip of US EXIM Bank Chairman Fred P Hochberg is significant for funding major US projects in India, sources said. They informed that Delhi would be eager to source funds from EXIM Bank for nuclear power projects whose reactors will be supplied by US nuclear major Westinghouse.

The Indian side will discuss this issue during Hochberg’s trip, the sources indicated.

That the US is keen to expedite the dialogue process was evident from Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in Switzerland last week and later in his Republic Day greetings to India. “Khurshid and I affirmed that we are eager to move forward with our highlevel dialogues and exchanges soon, and that our countries remain firmly committed to the indispensable US-India partnership,” Kerry said in his Republic Day greetings.