Summary of points taken up at meeting between Obama and Manmohan Singh
By ANIWednesday, November 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - Following are the highlights/briefing points of the meeting between US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that took place at the White House on Tuesday.
PM had very productive discussion this morning with President Obama. They had a restricted meeting first which was followed by a meeting of delegations. The two leaders have established a personal rapport In his meetings PM conveyed that India wanted to develop a multi-faceted ties with the US. President Obama reciprocated these sentiments. He said that he admired PM and valued his advice.
President Obama said that India and the US shared common values and principles of democracy, openness, respect for fundamental freedom and human rights. He said India was a rising global power and was increasingly playing an important role in Asia.US saw its partnership with India as one of the most important relationships which would contribute to peace, stability and prosperity in Asia, and the world.
President Obama stated that the relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. He emphasized that broadening cooperation between India and the US was a priority for him.
Both leaders agreed on a set of new initiatives and MoUs which represent our wide ranging and expanding ties, including a new Memorandum of Understanding on Counter-Terrorism Cooperation, a new initiative for collaboration on Clean Energy and Climate Change Initiative, MoUs for collaboration on R and D in Solar and Wind Energy, promotion of agricultural research, human resources capacity building, natural resource management, agri-business and food processing, and collaborative research for increasing food productivity, launch of a new Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative in which both India and the US will contribute five million dollars each, expansion of the Fulbright-Nehru program to provide more student and scholar exchange grants in priority fields such as science, technology and agriculture.
Both countries hope to establish a Regional Global Disease Detection Center in India and to build a partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The discussions also focused on the on-going cooperation in the field of defence. Strengthening of High Technology trade
President Obama and PM reiterated their commitment to expeditiously complete the remaining steps including the arrangements and procedures for reprocessing in the area of civil nuclear cooperation.
Focus on disarmament and non-proliferation They also had discussions on the situation in Afghanistan. By Smita Prakash (ANI)
