PM sets up committee to review ties with US
In the midst of demands from the Left and a section of the government for taking the foreign policy pendulum to an anti-US position, a high-level task force appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to assess India’s US strategy has said the ruli...
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: In the midst of demands from the Left and a section of the government for taking the foreign policy pendulum to an anti-US position, a high-level task force appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to assess India’s US strategy has said the ruling regime should stop being diffident about relations with Washington.
The committee, which wants the political class to adopt a new mindset, said the corporate works has been receptive to the changes in the global order. The nine-member committee — ‘Task Force on Global Strategic Development’ — headed by defence expert K Subrahmanyam was constituted seven months ago to assess US strategy and India’s strategy towards Washington.
The expert group has R K Pachauri of Tata Energy Research Institute (Teri), former vice-chief of Indian Air Force Air Marshal Vinod Patni, economist Dr Arvind Virmani, Tarun Das of the Confederation of Indian Industry and academic Amitabh Mattoo as its members. The committee submitted its report to the prime minister on the eve of the G-8 summit in St Petersburg.
The committee had briefed the National Security Council Advisory Board that advises the prime minister on important issues before it finalised the report. The commitee, who wanted the constructive engagement with the US to continue, was of the view that the India-US signalled a major foreign policy shift in US since President Nixon’s China visit in the 1970s.
The committee said this engagement will help the country reaps the benefit of globalisation. The committee did not agree with the view that US was using India to checkmate China. This is the first time that a government has sought specific inputs from experts on US policy.
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While the nuclear deal is a big step in furthering the relations between the two countries, US have now emerged as the third biggest supplier of defence equipment to India after Russia and Israel.Download
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