Obama visit: India-US ties set to move to transformative level

New Delhi, Jan 19: India-US ties are set to move to the transformative level during President Barack Obama's India visit later this week, building also on the personal rapport developed between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi with both sides keen to have promising outcomes from the talks on a range of issues, including defence, energy, education and economic cooperation. Obama, chief guest at this year's Republic Day parade, has described Modi as a "man of action". The two leaders have met thrice already in the recent past - in Washington during the bilateral in September last year, in Myanmar during the East Asia Summit and in Brisbane during the G20 in November. But the Jan 25 bilateral would be an "important summit" meeting in that it would seek to give a more concrete shape to many of the agreed points of the joint statement issued last year in Washington. The summit would see a "more broader partnership and more energized" ties between the two sides. In the field of defence, both sides are set to ink a new 10-year defence framework agreement that would take defence cooperation to a higher level. Talks on developing the next generation aircraft carrier are likely to gain steam as well as on coproduction of defence equipment. The US is keen to replicate in part the kind of defence cooperation that India and Russia share, especially on the lines of the BrahMos missiles that is jointly developed by the two countries. The US is also to cooperate with a planned National Defence University to be set up by India. The agreement for US involvement the Smart Cities project for Ajmer, Allahabad and Vishakhapatnam is also to get a push during the talks.