Modi-Obama summit will be their third in a year

New York, Sep 28: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama will hold a summit meeting in New York on Monday - their third in a year - during which climate change and bilateral economic and defence ties are expected to figure high on the agenda. The meeting comes days after the two sides held their first India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue here, headed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and US Secretary of State John Kerry. The Modi-Obama summit also comes days after Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the White House that saw the US and China strive to smoothen ties amid anger in Washington over increasing cyber attacks on US government installations, that the US has blamed on China. The US is also concerned over China's increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea. US envoy to India Richard Verma, in a recent talk, acknowledged that, in India, the US has gained a "critically important strategic partner" of President Obama's Rebalance to Asia policy. But he added that this growing bilateral strategic relationship is "definitively" not directed at the "elephant in the room" China. In a pointer to the emphasis the US places on India as a rebalance to Asia, Verma also said he was "certain" that the US-India relationship would "serve as an important new buttress safeguarding open commerce and freedom of navigation in the Asia-Pacific region" - in a tacit reference to China's fast increasing sway in the region.