IANS correspondent, Manish Chand, wrote of the roundtable in his despatch:"The rise of China and India as major powers by 2020, as predicted by a US intelligence report, is good news for growing Indis-US relations. In a scenario where China emerges as a superpower and thus a potential threat to the US' sole superpower status, the US will team up with India to counter China's ambitions, said K Subrahmanyam, top strategy expert, here Monday. "It is inevitable that India and the US will come together under pressures of mutuality of interest," said Subrahmanyam, who headed the Kargil panel appointed by the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. He was speaking at a seminar organised by SAPRA India Foundation, a think tank on security and strategic issues, on the future of India-US relations." [Read full article]

In his presentation, Mr. Subrahmanyam stated that there was an element of 'inevitability' in Indo-US relations, which essentially indicated towards a better and strong relations over the next many years. He said that while both countries have independent policies but there is a lot of common interests, military and others. Mr. Subrahmanyam stated that terrorism brought India and the US together though the US had joined the war against terrorism much later than India. He stated that the Sino-US rivalry would bring India and US together as there is a high likelihood of improved relations between the two democracies. However, these relations would be based on hard national interests and not shared democratic values only. Mr. Subrahmanyam pointed that the 21st century is the Knowledge century and knowledge capital would ultimately decide the ranking of nations. The only way that the US could sustain its position is by ensuring that its brain power does not fall behind. As the US cannot import brain power from Europe and China, it will be drawn to India which significant brain power.

Complimenting Mr. Ram Narayanan on the huge database of information about the activities of the Indian American community in the US, former ambassador G. Parthasarathy stated that Mr. Narayanan's efforts have helped to develop a better understanding among the Indian community. Stating that the Indian community in the US is nearly touching the 2 million figure, Mr. Parthasarathy said that it was a law abiding community as well. Though US perceptions towards India has changed over the years, Mr. Parthasarathy said that there were some issues that still need to be resolved between the two countries. He listed these as: nuclear proliferation network in which Pakistan has a major role; Indo-Iran relations which the US needs to look at more realistically. Mr. Parthasarathy pointed out that India's ability to meet the post Tsunami challenge and also assist other affected countries in the region indicated to the US that India is not a basket case. He stated that there was scope for Indo-US cooperation in addressing problems in countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Mr. Ram Narayanan addressed the gathering on why he thinks that a solid and comprehensive Indo-US strategic partnership is inevitable. In his presentation, Mr. Narayanan stated that the concept of world wars was not relevant anymore as there are huge economic interests at stake. Talking about Sino-US relations, he stated that China was all poised to take over the status of the world's superpower from the US. He said that demographic factors such as average age of the population, number of scientists etc. were in favour of China, which is the only aggressive competitor of the US. However, Mr. Narayanan said that if the US did not want to play second fiddle to China, then it has to expand the scope of its relations with India as India enjoys a strong demographic and intellectual advantage over China. India has a 600 million strong workforce and the intellectual capital found in India far exceeds that of China in virtually all spheres. Moreover, Indians are also comfortable as well as fluent in the English language which is a strong similarity with the US. The main factor is that India will never be an aggressive competitor of the US like China, whose only objective is dethrone the US from its superpower status. Mr. Narayanan stressed that India and the US should revise the entire gamut of their relations over the next four years of the Bush administration. Issues like the NPT, differences with regard to Pakistan etc. have to be addressed. Another factor that would contribute to enhancing the relations is a massive flow of US investment in India and a climate of total trust at all levels - government, bureaucracy and R&D establishment. Mr.Narayanan urged for a deeper understanding of each other's real politik in order to forge a greater relation.

Ms. Loral Alberta Narayanan outlined the activities undertaken to promote greater Indo-US relations. The online effort by the husband-wife team has made significant strides in the past few years. Though the web site has no organisational backing, it has been able to create, maintain and update a huge database on issues linking Indo-US interests. In 2004, the web site had recorded over 52,000 visitors and was at the first place for search relating to Indo-US relations in 19 search engines including Yahoo etc. She said that they have also built up an extensive network through email, which was over 12,000 and growing. Moreover, over 3,000 members of this network were actively working with US Congressmen, analysts, academics and others to promote greater understanding between the two countries. Terrorism expert Mr. Saikia stated that though the American definition of Terrorism changed after 9/11, the Terrorist List compiled by the US was not comprehensive and many of those outfits which have targeted India for years do not find mention. He also questioned the duality in US policy which brought draconian acts like the Patriot Act after 9/11 but at the same time, Washington does not accept counter insurgency operations in Kashmir. Moreover, the US policy towards Bangladesh was ambivalent as reports by US media agencies that disclosed the presence of Al Qaida and Taliban cadres in Bangladesh were dismissed by the US administration. Mr. Saikia stated that both India and the US need to agree on a common definition of terrorism and should work out an accord under which an attack by a terrorist on any of the countries would be considered an act of terror against the other. Also, there was the need to create a joint Islamic Task Force, which would work to separate the perceptions across the world which equate Islam with Terrorism. He also recommended that the two countries should set up a special group to study the funding patterns of terrorist organisations. The presentations were followed by general discussions on India-US relations. The participants were largely of the view that Indo-US relations can only progress over the next few years though both have a long list of complaints against the other. The need of the hour is to address these complaints and resolve them in order to pave the way for a greater bilateral and strategic partnership.

Addressing the participants, Mr. Pyatt said that building a strategic relationship with India is a high priority objective of the present Bush administration. He stated that Indo-US relations were based on four strong aspects which would contribute to enhancing the developing partnership in a significant way. Mr. Pyatt outlined these four aspects as: People-to-People relations which he termed as an important source of stability in bilateral relations; growing Technological and Economic ties with greater cooperation between the industries of the two countries; Security partnership which received a fillip in the post Tsunami phase when the US and Indian military consulted each other on the rescue and rehabilitation efforts; Cultural relationship as evident in the democratic values and a high level of religious tolerance in both countries as well as the English language, which is a common and widely used mode of communication between the two democracies.