Obama`s visit to underscore India`s growing leadership in Asia

Washington, Oct 2 (PTI) President Barack Obama's
three-day visit to India next month will not only mark another
milestone in Indo-US relationship but also underscores its
growing leadership in Asia and illustrate its economic rise, a
top US official has said.
"The visit will underscore the importance we attach
to India's growing leadership in Asia and beyond, and how our
partnership will help build global security and prosperity,"
Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert
Blake has said.
"In a little more than one month, in early November,
President Obama will make a three-day visit to India that will
mark another seminal milestone in our bilateral relations,"
Blake said.
Delivering 27th Annual Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Lecture
at San Diego State University in California, Blake said the
visit will illustrate how India's economic rise has created
new opportunities for mutually beneficial economic partnership
between the two knowledge-based economies.
"Our education and agricultural collaboration will
draw on resources in both countries to help sustain inclusive
growth in India and the continued rise of India's poor into
the middle-class, enlarging a market that benefits the world
economy, and especially the US," Blake said, adding these are
the three cross-cutting themes that would illustrate the
breadth, depth and promise of Indo-US partnership.
A strong education system in US and India is at the
crux of each nation's knowledge-based economy and will fuel
innovation and facilitate growth for decades to come, he said.
"With so many young Indians ready to enter the work
force, India needs to rapidly expand its system of higher
education to provide them the training they need to sustain
India's knowledge economy," he said, but quickly pointed out
that India cannot do this alone.
"Later this year or early next, India's Minister of
Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal hopes to shepherd a
bill through India's Parliament that for the first time will
allow foreign universities to establish campuses and offer
degrees in India.
"This will open significant new opportunities for
American universities to develop new partnerships, and new
research and development opportunities with Indian
counterparts," Blake said.
The US official said Obama envisions a partnership
where American and Indian businesses create new wealth with
job opportunities for the peoples of the two countries, where
scientists can develop jointly new drugs to combat global
diseases, and where their militaries can work to protect
global sea lanes from piracy. PTI