US team on way to push tech talks

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush had agreed to launch the second phase of NSSP by mid-October and had also decided on an NSSP Implementation Group when they met at New York last month.

This came days after Washington modified export-licensing policies to encourage cooperation in civilian space programmes and also resulted in the removal of the Indian Space Research Organisation from the banned entities list.

The significance being attached by both sides to the NSSP can be gauged by the fact that Washington is keeping up the pace of official interaction despite the US Presidential elections next month.

Juster’s visit is expected to be followed up the week after with a visit by US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca. She will meet her counterpart S Jaishankar in South Block as the two sides will work on wats to speed up implementation of decisions taken in the context of the NSSP.

These two visits, however, are likely to be the last round of major official-level exchange before the elections in the US.

It’s learnt that Juster will also meet Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran who is his counterpart in the high-technology cooperation group and senior officials of the Commerce Ministry.

On the agenda of these meetings: discussing ways to further improve Indian access to US technology without undermining Washington’s various treaty obligations.

Both sides will also explore ways to expand the process by combining engagement with the private sector.

Sources pointed out that one of the important elements of the Indo-US strategic partnership is the necessity to give it a sound commercial bearing.

So Juster’s trip will also involve discussions on broadening the scope of the NSSP and strengthening its linkages with the Indo-US economic dialogue.