WASHINGTON: Prominent Indian Americans discuss Indo-US ties

WASHINGTON: Indiaspora, an organisation of
prominent Indian Americans, hosted an event for community leaders in Washington
DC earlier this week.
Indian ambassador to the US, Taranjit Sandhu; Atul Keshap, who recently served
as US charge d’affaires in Delhi; Indian American Congressmen Ami Bera and Raja
Krishnamoorthi; Neera Tanden, senior advisor to President Joe Biden; Dr Meena
Seshamani, director of center for medicare; former US ambassador to India, Rich
Verma and Nisha Biswal, president of US-India Business Council, were some of
the prominent guests at the event.

This was the first time since the
pandemic that important community leaders; Indiaspora members and many of the
recently appointed Indian American officials in the Biden administration, got
together.

“The time has come for us to get
serious about where the next frontier is in US-India ties,” Nisha Desai Biswal,
president of US India Business Council said at the dinner. Neither for the
United States nor for India, two of the largest economies in the world, is it tenable
to be outside of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to not have a trade
architecture in place between themselves, she added.

“We are starting to see real signals of interest from India to be able to
explore that. So, I think the time has come to get serious. It’s not easy. It’s
a path riddled with all kinds of obstacles,” she said.

“I’ve heard it described to me that trade negotiations are a knife fight in a
dark alley. It’s time for us to put down the knives, turn on the light, get
down to business,” she said in a lighter vein and urged the powerful group of
Indian Americans to engage the two governments on the issue.

In her brief remarks on the occasion, Neera Tanden, senior advisor to President
Biden, said it is critical to have Indian-Americans at the table, contributing,
involved and engaged in helping make decisions. “As many have said before, if
you are not at the table, you are on the menu. That is why your voices are so
important, your role here in everything you do is so important.”

Former US ambassador to India,
Richard Verma, said the recent successful visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
was a new chapter in this important bilateral relationship. “We’ve got to all
now work on it. The president gave us the roadmap to follow on trade and health
and climate and security and so much more. I’m actually pretty excited about
the bilateral ties and even broader Quadrilateral ties as well,” he said.
Indian-American congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi and Ami Bera also spoke on the
occasion. Krishnamoorthi thanked the diaspora for their outpouring of support
for pandemic relief.