An upbeat note in Indo-U.S. ties

An upbeat note in Indo-U.S. ties

The encouraging signals that the Finance Minister Mr. Yashwant
Sinha, seems to have received now from his U.S. interlocutors
point to the possibility of an early move by the Bush
administration to scrap the economic sanctions still in place
against India.

The confidence exuded by Mr. Sinha amplifies the extraordinary
note of optimism that the External Affairs and Defense Minister,
Mr. Jaswant Singh, had struck after his recent talks with the
U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, and other top officials. Both
Mr. Sinha and Mr. Singh did not take the initiative to discuss
the sanctions issue with their respective American interlocutors
and instead left it to them to do so from their perspective.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Sinha has now made the point that the
U.S. initiative "is an indication of their keen desire to be able
to do away with it (the sanctions regime) as quickly as
possible." New Delhi has indeed taken a consistent line that
these sanctions "hurt" the U.S. interests more than those of
India.

The move, calling for an end to the sanctions, was initiated
on the ground that the Indo-U.S. nexus "has become one of the
most significant emerging relationships in the world." In one
sense, the relatively new feel-good mood in the ties between the
governments of the two large democracies is shared on the
Capitol, too. Simply put, an economic embargo can only erode, if
not also stifle, the spirit of an expanding U.S.-India
engagement.

In a realpolitik sense, the resolution of the sanctions issue
may not fully determine the tone of New Delhi's future
interaction with the U.S. The same applies to Washington's
expectations of India in respect of the larger strategic
questions such as nuclear non-proliferation and missile defense
as also the conventional political controversies.

Yet, the current move in the U.S. to evaluate the disutility
of the prevalent sanctions acquires some strategic meaning, too,
in the context of a reported perception in the Bush
administration that India has earned the right to sit at the
table of global powers.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi