The last US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, called the bilateral economic relationship ‘‘flat as a chapati.’’ With the announcement today of David C. Mulford, a personal friend of US president George Bush and an old associate of Bush Sr, as the next US envoy to India, there are expectations that this long-ignored aspect of the growing relationship will find due recognition. As chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston International and a former Undersecretary of Treasury in the first Bush administration, Mulford is expected to leverage the political-strategic relationship in key economic terms. Mulford belongs to the Washington’s power elite, that includes men like Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Frank Carlucci. His appointment is proof that Bush retains a ‘‘personal, direct’’ interest in the relationship with India, said analysts. They believed that Mulford and Charge d’affaires Robert Blake will ‘‘nicely complement’’ each other, since Blake is a career diplomat who served as a key aide to US undersecretary for political affairs Marc Grossman before moving to Delhi.That interest will be manifest over the next few weeks. US Undersecretary for Commerce Kenneth Juster comes to India over November 19-20 to participate in a meeting of the bilateral High Technology Cooperation Group with Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal. In Bangalore and New Delhi, Juster will interact with key businessmen from FICII, CII and NASSCOM, after which he will participate in the New Delhi event of the World Economic Forum. The two sides are expected to take forward their discussions on the ‘‘quartet’’ issues, namely high-technology, missile defence, space and nuclear issues. Named the ‘Glide Path’ by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the key result of these negotiations will be to bridge the yawning mistrust between the two sides on technologies which have capabilities for dual use. On November 20, former President Bill Clinton is also arriving in the capital for a high-profile meeting on HIV-AIDS, on the margins of which he is likely to meet Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. Clinton is also likely to visit Bhuj in Gujarat. Later in December, India and the US will participate in a high-profile joint working group on counter-terrorism. From the US side, the co-chairman of the JWG is Joseph Cofer Black, the Bush administration’s special envoy on counter-terrorism. Black pulled a few punches this week in Manila when he said that countries in the region should follow the US lead in ‘‘making no concessions to terrorists,’’ that they should help isolate and apply pressure on states that sponsor terrorism and force them to change their behaviour. That is a line that is expected to go down well in India. Black’s credentials are also impeccable. With a 28-year career in intelligence gathering at the CIA behind him, Black was the director of the CIA’s counter-terrorist centre when the 9/11 events took place. But analysts also point out the dissonances in the Indo-US relationship, such as the continuing differences in the two world views over Iraq. Meanwhile, Vajpayee’s visit to Syria over the next couple of days comes within a week of the US Senate voting to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions against Damascus. It was none other than Cofer Black who told a US Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing in Washington two weeks ago that there is ‘‘little evidence that Syria has reduced support of terror groups.’’
