PM, Obama have 5-point agenda

New Delhi, Nov. 18: Counter-terrorism cooperation at the bilateral, regional and global levels will be among the four or five “big ideas” that will define Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s, talks with the US President, Mr Barack Obama, in Washington on November 24.

Another element of the US-India 3.0 relationship will be an initiative to usher in a second “green revolution” for fostering sustainable economic development, which will be similar in potential to the first green revolution in India pioneered by late American scientist Norman Borlaug.

Also on the bilateral agenda will be education, climate change, poverty alleviation, non-proliferation and disarmament, said the US ambassador to India, Mr Timothy J. Roemer, said on Wednesday, giving a preview of the talks between Dr Singh and Mr Obama.

He said these “four or five big global issues” will form the cornerstones of the new India-US strategic partnership in the next few decades, which will be unveiled towards the end of Dr Singh’s state visit to the US, the first such by any world leader during the Obama presidency.

The counter-terrorism cooperation between India and the US will be at “multiple levels” and extend from a purely bilateral level to accommodate regional and global perspectives too.

Mr Roemer said bilateral cooperation against terrorism has “never been this close” and scale of information-sharing is “unprecedented,” and the White House meeting can be expected to “outline future cooperation” in this area.

Discussions will also take place on the remaining items required for implementing the India-US civil nuclear deal, which, according to Mr Roemer, has brought a lot of trust and confidence into the bilateral relationship.