 Thank you all very much for coming. My name is John Hamry. I'm the president at CSS, and I am only here in an ornamental role to say thank you to you and to get out of the way as quickly as possible so that you all have a chance to, of course, hear State Secretary Mattai. We are grateful that he has given us this opportunity, that he's using CSS as a platform to address the policy community in Washington. The State Secretary is one of the most senior and skilled members of the Foreign Service in India and has an exceptionally distinguished career in track record. I'm going to let Rick Indefirth be the one to formally introduce him. We're fortunate at CSS that in the last year to have created an India program, and Ambassador Indefirth is the first chairholder, the Wadwane Chairholder, and we're very grateful that we have this opportunity to bring such a very senior man to Washington and to have him share his policy insights and perspectives. I'm hearing some noise over here. Whatever this is, can we turn it off? Whatever it is, it's overhead. Okay, we'll figure out what that is. That's the last thing that we need to have interrupting things here. You know, I'm the only infant in this place, so either we need to get on with things. So Rick, let me ask you to come and formally get the program started. Thank you all. I would ask that you respect the foreign secretary. His formal remarks are going to be on the record, but his response to questions and answers are going to be off the record, and I'd ask you all to respect that, please. Okay, Rick, please, why don't you get a start? Well, I'm glad the background noise has been discovered. I was about to say it sounded like Congress, but I shouldn't have thought that. And I hope that former Congressman, Ambassador Tim Romer will excuse that expression. Welcome, good to see you here in Washington. Distinguished career, most recently our ambassador to New Delhi, so it's great to have you here. Foreign Secretary, it's delightful to have you here if I'm not mistaken, and Ambassador Arun Singh made it clear to me that this was a great occasion because I think this is your first visit to Washington as foreign secretary. Is that correct? And we're delighted that CSIS is the first port of entry in the think tank world for the foreign secretary to speak to an audience here about US-Indian relations. John, thank you very much for the welcoming. I'd like to say just a very few words about the foreign secretary, his background, and then hear from him, and then we'll have a Q&A session. We have one hour, and as John Hammeray said, the first part will be on the record, his remarks, and then we'll have an off the record session, many topics to discuss. So first of all, on your first visit here as foreign secretary, he took this position in August, replacing the now ambassador to the United States from India, Ambassador Rao, so we're delighted to have him here, and delighted to have her here, two wonderful appointments of the Indian government. Ambassador Mathai has spent his career in the foreign service, joining in 1974. Earlier in his career, you spent some time in Washington, if that's correct, so this is not his first time to the Washington world, and delighted to have you back in this capacity. He has had several ambassadorial appointments, including to Israel, Qatar, Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and most recently, Ambassador to France. So India has sent, once again, one of their most distinguished and experienced foreign service personnel to Washington, and we're delighted to welcome you here. So foreign secretary, if you'd like to take the podium, and we look forward to your remarks. Dr. John Hammeray, Ambassador Indefat, Ambassador Roma, other distinguished diplomats, members of the think tank community, friends, thank you, Dr. Hammeray and Ambassador Indefat, for your kind words of introduction, and for setting the stage so eloquently for a discussion on India-U.S. relations. I believe it's an honor and privilege for me to be hosted at the Statesman's Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center of great eminence and scholarship, and one that now has a special link to India through the Wadwani Chair for India-U.S. Policy Studies. I'm fairly sure that I'm here purely as a guest, as I am no statesman, particularly not in President Truman's definition of that, which was, a statesman is a politician who's been dead for about 10 or 15 years. But I am returning to Washington more than 25 years after I did a three-year tour of duty at our embassy here. And besides the iconic architectural marvels of the city and the reassuringly familiar feel of embassy row, much has indeed changed in this city. As someone said, case tree is certainly a lot more prosperous. And yet, much remains entirely the same and that, I think, is particularly true of the vigor of your debates and the fact that they encompass the entire globe. While change is a constant companion of time, it is also true that since the mid-80s, the world has seen more profound political, economic, technological and strategic changes than we would normally expect in a period of two or three decades. Yet, through these changes, the significance of the United States to the whole world has not altered. But India's ongoing transformation and the new India-U.S. relationship are both part of what has changed and both can have a considerable impact on the shape of the world in the 21st century. When I returned to Delhi last July to prepare for my current assignment, I had the good fortune to begin with the second India-U.S. strategic dialogue, which Ambassador Nirupo Marau, as you pointed out, who was then our foreign secretary, was coordinating so ably. I was struck by the depth and the diversity of our partnership, the comfort and candor in our dialogue and the extensive support it enjoyed across a broad spectrum of public opinion, particularly among those looking to the future. Some of us are absorbed with the present, which is of course a bridge to the future. But it became evident to me that what was perhaps unprecedented and novel in our relationship, even just ten years ago, is even right now part of the normal and the routine. There are many here who have experienced or participated in that change, and few would understand it as well as Ambassador Inderforth, who was handling this account at critical times. We spent the first decade of this century in building this relationship, addressing the constraints of the past and laying the foundation for the future. It was an ambitious enterprise that required great political investment in both countries. As our relationship has matured, it continues to be infused with dynamism and momentum. In the years since President Obama's visit to India in November 2010, we have sustained an unprecedented level of bilateral engagement, launched new strategic consultations that cover key regions of the world, began our first trilateral consultation which includes Japan, advanced our cooperation on nonproliferation and nuclear security, deepened counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation, launched a new Homeland Security Dialogue, made steady progress in our partnership on export controls and nuclear security, concluded the largest defense deal yet in our bilateral relations, sustained military exercises and broadened defense strategic dialogue, taken forward the incipient cooperation for development in third countries, especially Africa, held a very successful higher education summit in Washington, D.C. and made innovation driven progress in areas such as clean energy, food security and health care. We resumed negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty and expanded opportunities for economic cooperation through measures like the infrastructure debt fund and tariff reductions on products with potential for bilateral trade. Indeed, I do not think that we have had as much convergence or spoken more transparently and extensively with each other as we do now on some of the most important issues in our engagement, terrorism and key regional issues including Afghanistan, Myanmar and the future of the Asia-Pacific. These developments would constitute a remarkable year in any bilateral relationship. Yet there are in both countries questions about the state and direction of our relationship. Some of this, as we all realize, comes from the fact that the relationship no longer derives its intensity and movement from the pursuit of one transformational idea and it has matured into a solid broad-based relationship. There are of course tangible issues. In the U.S. there are worries about the commercial implementation of the civil nuclear agreement and lingering disappointment with one major defense contract. In India there is weariness that the relationship may be turning transactional with an emphasis on immediate returns and upward trends. There is anxiety about protectionist trends in the U.S. especially in our IT industry that has been the bridge between our two economies so far. And in both countries developments in West Asia have raised questions whether our approaches, if not our interests are consistent at least in the immediate future. It is important to address these issues. As our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said, the India-U.S. Civil Initiative is a symbol, instrument and a platform of a transformed India-U.S. relationship. We are committed to translating the success of our diplomatic partnership in changing the global nuclear order into an equally productive commercial cooperation in civil nuclear energy. We have the reality of our law passed by our parliament and as we have said before we will provide a level playing field to U.S. companies and are prepared to address specific concerns of U.S. companies within the framework of that law. We have remained engaged and must now take practical steps to advance our cooperation as we have done over the past year. We have just had a round of discussions between the legal experts on the implications of our law. The commencement of discussions between the Indian Operator which is the Nuclear Power Corporation of India and the U.S. companies in regard to what they call agreement is an encouraging development. Our defence procurement in India has to be based on the best technoeconomic choice in accordance with procurement guidelines and it must also meet the test of parliamentary scrutiny on procurement process an obligation I believe is not unfamiliar to you in Washington, D.C. It also bears repeating that our defence trade has gone from negligible levels a few years ago to a cumulative value of about $9 billion in the last four or five years and is set to expand further. On both sides we are making continuous progress in understanding each other's procurement and approval process extending our engagement from simple trade to technology transfer and joint research, development and production. Our dialogues on regional issues have been expanding let me start with the developments in West Asia in 2011 which may have taken us all by surprise. In our discussions we are all trying to comprehend the underlying causes and the forces involved and striving to grasp the consequences and the sense and sense the outcomes of changes that have generated both hope and concerns in a region of global significance. Six million Indians live in that region. They constitute the largest expatriate group there and obviously their welfare is a matter of high priority for us. The region is critical for our economy contributing over $100 billion by way of export markets over $40 billion annually in remittances and more than two-thirds of our petroleum imports. This in a country which is dependent on imports for 75% of its total oil consumption. Peace and stability and a climate of moderation in the region are absolutely vital for us. We not only have strong political and economic ties with the countries in the region but also enjoy a warm relationship with their people. Since before the time when India became one of the earliest destinations for the three great religions from West Asia, India and the West Asian countries have shared close and natural ties as neighbors. Ties of religion continue to bind us. India has always had and will remain sensitive to the interests, aspirations and the rights of people in West Asia who will respect their rights and respond to their aspirations. However, we look at the developments there. We are all united by the desire for peace and stability in the region and we must seek to forge the broadest possible consensus on our collective response. It also follows from our stakes in the region that we do not wish to see the spread of nuclear weapons in West Asia. India's position on the question of Iran's nuclear program is well known and our votes are clear. We believe that while Iran has the rights to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it must also fulfil its international obligations as a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT. We would like to see the issue resolved peacefully through negotiations. We also hope that negotiations between the P5 plus 1 as it is called and Iran would resume soon and contribute to a positive outcome. Iran is our near neighbour. It is our only surface access to Central Asia and Afghanistan and constitutes a declining but still significant share of our oil imports currently just below 10%. For us, there are also broader and long-term geostrategic concerns that are no different from what we face elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Our relationship with Iran is neither inconsistent with our non-proliferation objectives nor is it in contradiction with the relationships that we have with our friends in West Asia or with the United States and Europe. These are important even if difficult issues and one of the heartening aspects of the India-U.S. relationship has been that we are able to discuss them respectfully and candidly with a sense of appreciation of each other's perspectives and a recognition I believe that while the choices that each makes for each other, they are certainly not directed against each other. Beyond that, we continue to be guided by a larger vision for our strategic partnership and the value of all that our two sides have built together. In India, we are confident that the long-term framework of our partnership will continue to become stronger and more broad-based. Let me highlight the priorities. India and the United States can and must strengthen their economic partnership. The flow of trade in goods and services and investments in both directions has grown several times in the past two decades. Today, we have around 40 billion of U.S. imports, both goods and services. Indian businesses have invested perhaps 26 billion dollars in the U.S. in five years. All this has created new job openings in the U.S. It is also natural that as the Indian economy continues to grow and modernize, as the U.S. economy recovers its momentum and as the global economic situation improves, our trade and investment relations will surge to higher levels. India's planned infrastructure spending of about one trillion dollars in the next five years, the modernization of our agriculture sector, our shift to clean energy, the implementation of the Civil Nuclear Agreement, the burgeoning defense trade, cooperation in higher education and the growing ability of the Indian companies to compete in the U.S. market could take our economic ties to an entirely new level. We remain committed to pursuing economic reforms in India in their broadest sense. The debate in India today is not a question about economic growth, efficiency and openness, much as we value all these, but it is about equity, empowerment and opportunities for a large section of the population which feels they were left behind during the country's two decades of economic growth. We are, of course, affected by the international debate on globalization and its discontents. We do hope the current economic challenges in the U.S. would not lead to protectionism and that the concerns of Indian IT industry will be addressed quickly. NASCOM, the body which represents our IT industry, estimates that the Indian industry employs over 100,000 in the U.S. up from 20,000 six years ago. It supports 200,000 other jobs including indirect ones apart from enhancing the competitiveness of some U.S. industries. Most Indian companies are setting up development centers here. The Indian IT industry has contributed $15 billion in taxes over the last five years. This success story should not be set back by stringent visa regulations which act as a non-tariff barrier. According to a back of the envelope calculation which was done in my office by a representative of NASCOM, Indians have paid over $200 million in visa fees. Somewhere between 30 to 50 million has been taken from young aspiring Indians working in business whose U.S. visas were rejected. Vegetatively, the pink slip has become a greenback. It needs reiteration that the targets of these discriminatory actions are precisely those who have contributed to an inter... contributed intellectually to the climate of reform in India and who have been votaries of strong India-U.S. relationships. As our economic ties deepen we will obviously have a growing range of policy and regulatory concerns with each other. But we have in place an elaborate system of bilateral mechanisms to address them. While we should expeditiously conclude a bilateral investment treaty that is funded too. The United States, strangely, is the only advanced economy in the world with which India has not concluded or is not pursuing a comprehensive economic partnership agreement. So we should not only focus on expanding trade and investment but also use the power of innovation to make our economy's global leaders in the 21st century and at the same time address the needs of the poorest sections of the population in the world and find solutions to the challenges of clean energy, food security, health and education. It is gratifying that we have powerful examples of innovative Indo-U.S. partnerships often forged by the youth of our two countries. Initiatives like the S&T Forum, the S&T Endowment Fund, the Joint Clean Energy Research Center and the SING Obama Knowledge Initiative, the Nehru Fulbright Program are all collaborative ventures the enthusiastic response in both countries to these mechanisms demonstrates the enormous potential for collaboration between our two countries. Energy security is of such vital and economic and strategic significance for us that we must treat it as a priority in itself. We have a number of financial, technological and exploratory initiatives with the U.S. in clean and renewable energy as well as energy conservation and efficiency and as part of our wide-ranging official energy dialogue we also plan to expand the dialogue to share experiences and perspectives on low carbon growth. I believe that we also need to build on the potential for increasing natural gas production in India. This energy source could be a significant bridge to a future based on clean energy and in the transition period we have to balance our requirements for massive industrial, infrastructural and transport growth without expanding our carbon footprint excessively. We must also extend the benefit of our cooperation to other countries building on our incipient cooperation on food security in Africa or the open government platform that we are developing jointly for application in other interested countries. We must do this not merely as a model imperative of making economic development more broad based and inclusive globally but also for the strategic reason of promoting stability and security in vulnerable parts of the world and to underline the strength of the shared democratic and liberal values. Our partnership is important for building a stable, prosperous and secure Asia-Pacific region or as some here have begun to call it the Indo-Pacific region. This is a region of unprecedented transitions and unsettled questions but what is clear to most of us is that many of the greatest opportunities as well as challenges of the 21st century lie in this region. Our engagements with Southeast Asia and East Asia and increasingly the Pacific has expanded over the past two decades. It is an engagement characterized by strong bilateral ties extending from Myanmar to Australia deepening linkages with regional organizations especially ASEAN a web of comprehensive economic partnership agreements and ambitious plans of surface and air connectivity. While our luke east policy began with a strong economic emphasis and content we now have growing strategic and security engagement in the region. China is our largest neighbor, a major country in the Asia-Pacific region and a country with great global influence. We have considerable challenges in our relationship and enormous opportunities for mutually beneficial partnership at the bilateral and global levels. We will continue to invest in building a stable and cooperative relationship with China that is mutually beneficial and also a source of regional stability and prosperity. There are a number of global and regional challenges on which India, China and the United States must work together. We welcome the proposal Secretary Clinton made last for a trilateral dialogue between India, China and the United States. The Indian ocean is central to India's economy and its security and it is also a region of growing global strategic attention. India does not want to see this ocean emerge as a contested common or remain vulnerable to natural disasters, piracy or instability in coastal or literal states. For this reason we not only have robust bilateral strategic and security relationships in the region but through regional initiatives we have taken like the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and the Indian IORARC we are seeking to promote comprehensive economic cooperation among the countries of the littoral. Many times security more broadly has emerged as a key national security priority. We believe that this much hack need phrase requires first and foremost a collective affirmation of the principles of freedom of navigation unimpeded commerce and peaceful settlement of maritime disputes in accordance with international law. This must be an important priority for regional, diplomatic and political efforts and it is an area of growing importance in the India-U.S. relationship. The future of Afghanistan and of Pakistan will continue to engage our two countries. Their future is inseparable from the destiny of India and our region because India has a vital stake in their stability and progress. With Pakistan we will continue our endeavor to seek a peaceful cooperative and normal relationship. Over the past year India and the U.S. have had close consultation and coordination on our shared vision of a stable democratic and prosperous Afghanistan. It is a vision that can ultimately only be realized by the people of Afghanistan but they need the support, assistance, facilitation and sustained commitment of the international community. The quest for a settlement in Afghanistan must ensure that the enormous sacrifices and the efforts of the past decade are not in vain. It must build on progress and change that Afghanistan has experienced in the last 10 years and it must embrace all sections of Afghan society including its women and minorities. Any hand-locked countries' fortunes are linked with its neighbors. In the case of Afghanistan it is even more so. So we believe that Afghanistan's regional economic integration whether we call it the New Silk Road Initiative as Secretary Clinton described it or as our Ambassador Rao once called it the Grand Trunk Road Initiative or by any other name it is important for Afghanistan's and the wider region's stability India's commitment to Afghanistan is reflected in our strategic partnership agreement of October 2011 our $2 billion of assistance our support for building Afghan capacity for governance security and development Afghanistan's preferential access to the Indian market and our efforts to improve its connectivity to the world our commitment to invest in Afghanistan's mining sector and our willingness to use regional cooperation frameworks with the other neighbors of Afghanistan including Pakistan and Iran we should also explore avenues for collaboration between India and the US with others such as Japan for Afghanistan's development including through the development of its natural resources terrorism remains a major security challenge for India and the US our convergence on the source and the nature of the threat emanating from India's neighborhood has never been greater and our cooperation on combating and protecting our people from terrorism has never been stronger than today this is a very important aspect of our relationship with a strong public resonance and one that we must continue to strengthen in all its dimensions we should continue to further strengthen our growing partnership in leading international efforts on non-proliferation disarmament and pursuing the goals of the nuclear security summit India was pleased to host the Sherpa's meeting of the nuclear security summit in January we must also continue to work together to reform and adapt the global architecture of governance security and non-proliferation to reflect contemporary realities and enable our two countries to work together more effectively for shared interests taken together this is a rich and broad canvas of priorities which also addresses some of the core interests of India and the United States the question that is often asked is whether our two sides can translate our shared goals into a sustained and effective strategy of engagement and cooperation it is easy to talk of strategy one is often reminded of the story of the wise old owl sitting in the jungle and the little mouse was utterly lost and couldn't find his way out of the jungle and the owl replies, oh wise owl please tell me how do I get out of this jungle in which I'm lost so the owl looks down at him and says what you should do is grow wings like I have and then rise and fly out of the jungle to which the mouse replies, that's all very well but how do I grow those wings and the owl replies don't bother me with details, I deal only with strategy so let me then try and look at what are the ways to try to grow our wings together India's enduring commitment to strategic autonomy is a reflection of its democratic tradition and a conscious policy given our external environment and our national development goals but it does not mean that India will not assume its international responsibility nor is it mutually exclusive to building a strong strategic partnership indeed it is natural that our shared values and the wide range of our convergent interests will lead to deepening partnership of shared endeavours given our different circumstances history, location and the levels of development we will occasionally have differing perspectives and policies but this can be a source of great value and strength in our dialogue and it also enables us to work together for a broad global consensus on issues of common interest but for that we should attach real value to each other's perspectives and initiate each other's interests and sensitivities and when we differ we should be able to speak candidly and respectfully to each other and insulate the vast common ground between us from the differences in our relationship we must remember that while we may have occasionally different perspectives we are also united by a fundamental stake in each other's success because in succeeding individually we can advance our common interests and inspire a world mirrored in our ideals and even if our two governments did nothing it would still be an extraordinary relationship because of the growing ties of kinship between our people and the vitality of private partnerships of enterprise, innovation research and education across every field of human endeavour but I believe that we do have the political momentum, the public goodwill a comprehensive architecture of engagement, comfort and confidence in the relationship, the experience of bold and ambitious undertakings a proven capacity to work through challenges and as we have seen in recent years a growing habit of taking tangible steps on a regular basis to advance our cooperation so as I look ahead we will continue to consolidate and affirm our strategic partnership by completing existing projects and focusing on the wealth of new opportunities that we have we should continue to stay in close touch on the current challenges in the world, in our neighbourhood and beyond and we should above all continue to strengthen and expand the long term strategic framework of our relationship so that we can fully harness the boundless opportunities that this relationship has for our people and the substantial benefit that it can bring to this world thank you. Foreign secretary I think you referred to a rich and broad canvas of priorities I think you have sketched out for us and your very comprehensive remarks a great beginning point for our discussion with questions and answers because I think that he has given us a very full account of where this US-India relationship has come in a relatively short period of time over the past decade and all of the issues that we are now engaged in this is truly a broad based relationship from the economic partnership through energy security to regional issues including your reference when you said about India's look east policy beginning in the 1990s I'd like to actually start with that point of departure because you mentioned the look east policy we have had if you will a pivot west policy announced by the Obama administration and secretary Clinton we're now looking to what she referred to in a foreign policy article the pacific century Asia is going to be our future and a very important orientation for US foreign policy secretary Clinton came to Chennai and gave a very important speech there after the last strategic partnership meeting if I'm not mistaken I'd like to get your sense on how you see the recommendations being made in Washington for India's greater role leadership role looking east and the intriguing notion of possibly moving toward a trilateral dialogue trilateral relationship discussion with the United States, India and China do you think that that has any near term prospect so if we could start on the larger geopolitical discussion then we'll go to questions and answers well I thank you I'd like to start by saying that the pivot as you described it is a matter of very great interest to us in India our look east policy if I may just begin with that as you correctly said is now more than a decade old it started with a focus on economic relationships economic partnerships and also building on the very strong cultural foundation of the mutualities between India and Southeast Asia but it was also an attempt to build a series of relationships not just with Southeast Asia but with the entire Pacific region which we see as an important part of India's foreign policy outreach we regard Southeast Asia now as part of the extended neighborhood of India and we have gone along with the ASEAN definition of how this relationship really must move forward to a larger extent than than earlier and as it has gradually moved up from the economic and the commercial to the technical to sharing strategic perspectives and finally now having actually meetings of defense dialogues so it's a gradual work in progress but it is intended to anchor India very much in the development of Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region we see that as very much part of our natural movement as we grow and expand as regards the trilateral with China this is we think it's a very very good idea China also has very important interests in the same region the United States is already a major player in it what we have been told is that in response to our enthusiastic response you might say is that the Chinese have said for the moment they would like this as a track 2 dialogue rather than moving straight to an official probably they'd like to sound out and see where this is leading the three of us so that's where it stands at the moment may we go to questions and answers and if you could identify yourself and your affiliation yes in the back hi my name is Victoria Samson I'm the Washington office director for the secure world foundation secretary thank you for being here today I do have a question about an opportunity for strategic partnership that you did not mention and that would be with the United States and India to cooperate on space particularly since the United States has relaxed some of our export control restrictions for some Indian organizations is this a good opportunity to possibly engage the Chinese even be curious to hear your thoughts thank you space yes I think this is potentially one of the areas of cooperation just to set the record straight we are indeed already cooperating NASA and the Indian space research organization do have elements of cooperation it could be a lot bigger there are some issues relating to policy and regulation on both sides I think which we will need to overcome there's a debate and a dialogue going on I don't think either of us have thought of including China in this particular one to the best of my knowledge there are some issues relating to what you describe what you call CSLA the commercial space launch initiative which need to be examined in greater detail as of now we are not looking at any cooperation within the frame of that initiative but our two scientific communities certainly do talk I think there is a potential considerable potential for building commercial relationships in the space field but as I said this is an area which needs much more elaboration than it has had so far I agree Mr. Secretary many of the things that you articulated in your visionary speech I remember a few weeks before I left Delhi giving a speech to about 500 civil servants in the Indian government and I asked the question how many of you have associations with China and a few dozen hands went up and I asked how many people in the crowd have associations with Russia and probably 40 or 50 hands went up and I said how many people in the audience have associations with America and I would guess 200 or 300 hands went up to family and business and educational connections the shared values between America and India are truly profound and lead to this growing strategic relationship between our two great countries and our democracies there is a great deal of attention however these days on some problems on the economic side and ways that we can talk candidly as you said and moving through the multi-brand retail issue hopefully resolving that in the next five or six months that benefits both India and the United States but also hopefully getting to a long-term solution on the civilian nuclear issue that could lead us Mr. Secretary to a bit treaty and hopefully I would articulate a need for a trade treaty between the United States and India at some point in the next three or four years thinking bigger about trade between the two countries could you outline your thinking about how we move forward through multi-brand building trust and candid appraisal about our mutual interests economically and the infrastructure issues and how we eventually could get to a bit and then a free trade agreement between the two countries I'd love to hear your thinking on that and thank you in advance thank you very much you're absolutely right about the connections which you saw in that room of 500 students it's often forgotten that quite apart from the mutually shared values you have some depending on whose estimates you agree with something like between 50 to 150 million people who can speak and understand English in that country and that's a huge number when you look at the globe as a whole so I think India will continue to remain part of the English speaking world irrespective of what happens to its economy or anything else so that is one connection and I think that is one of the you might say spurs to this extraordinary expansion of the relationship at the educational level the language connection of course the values are sustaining it coming to the economic areas you're quite right in pointing to the problem areas in this on the multi-brand retail which you started with I can only quote what the commerce Mr. Anand Sharma said he said it's a matter of time before we go back and try to fix it and I can only do that because this is a political issue on which an official can only express an opinion he can't give you anything like a roadmap it's too fraught with danger but he did say that and I believe that that is the spirit in which the pause has been dealt with in the government of India that it is a pause and that we intend to go ahead with it when the time is right coming to the nuclear all I would point to what I was talking about was I think a fairly productive dialogue which we have had with the companies and their phalanx of legal experts whom they're always surrounded by and I think we did make some headway on getting to at least clarify to the extent that they can start now quantifying what is their risk you might say in making an investment at least that's the way I look at it perhaps it's only the first round maybe they may need another round of discussions but I think once we get there then the debate will move away from look we're not satisfied with your law to saying look we need a certain set of specific guarantees on what our financial commitment is and then once you get there you're on the road to progress and as I said an early works agreement has already started being talked about once you get on to that road and the companies do engage I think they will find as they have had experience in other fields that India is a fairly secure market once you get these things fixed in the beginning in fact one of the companies did say problems with India in other areas of international law and governance and so on once that got fixed they've done very well out of India so I think once that starts the nuclear industry could become one of the big tickets of the future I genuinely believe that but it's going to be a long road but we have started on it that's what I would say as regards the BIT and moving on from it that was entirely my view I think as we engage far more seriously on this how do we take it forward because I think the possibilities on both sides are very immense perhaps we needn't restrict it to just trade what we are talking about is a comprehensive economic partnership of the type which we have got with Singapore now we're working with Japan we're working with the EU in a much broader framework so there's great possibilities in other areas that's the way I see it and I think this will drive merely the potential in this is going to keep us engaged and drive this relationship even when there is no big ticket item sitting in front of us Foreign secretary I found it very interesting when you were sketching out your priorities for the year ahead that you started with the economic partnership and economic ties and if I'm not mistaken you mentioned to me one of the reasons it's here in Washington was with the secretary of commerce correct with secretary Bryson and under secretary the commerce department clearly is key to building this economic relationship and indeed secretary Bryson and I wanted to mention this on his first trade mission abroad he will be going to India and the subject will be infrastructure so I think that that shows priorities pursue this relationship maybe beyond bit for the future I think it is possible to get there and it's very clear that that economic relationship is going to provide important ballast in our overall relationship for the years ahead so I was very pleased to see that that was high on your priority list for this for 2012 other questions yes sir Bill Jones from executive intelligence review Mr. Secretary the pivot as you're probably aware of has caused some consternation in China a lot of discussion especially on the military side of it that they are interpreting as being directed against them as a form of containment especially the building of military alliances and strengthening of traditional alliances in the area now India has had a troubled history which has gotten much better over the last 10 years and obviously you probably view this in a little different setting than many of the people who are pushing it on this side see it and I was wondering if you could be more specific on how you see the developing relationship with China in terms of the so called Asia pivot and India's role in connection with that well actually the Asia pivot has been focused on this articulation more on the Pacific Rim certainly it would extend the Indo-Pacific as it is called but in that dialogue with us and we've had a fairly important high level dialogue with China this has not been an issue with between China and India and certainly I imagine you'd have to ask the Chinese what they think about the pivot as a whole but certainly I think the Chinese have always been reassured by this very concept of India's belief in its strategic autonomy and the fact that India has through its ups and downs relations with various countries in the past not being absorbed into alliances which are aimed against any other so I think the Chinese know that so I think to that extent they wouldn't have a sense that the pivot is going to be something where India is going to be aligned against them the relationship between India and China is a very complicated one very complex as you said better than 10 years ago but there is miles to go before we can actually be absolutely comfortable with each other we still have issues to resolve our trading relationship has grown by leaps and bounds and that is doing very well but I think the kind of sustained engagement which we intend to keep with China will focus both on our convergences as well as on our differences and we would need to find ways of managing those differences with China thank you very much I'm a Japanese scholar working for Johns Hopkins University as a business scholar my major is Indian studying my name is Takeuchi I'd like to ask you currently Japan has a negotiation with India about the nuclear deal nuclear cooperation Japan has two hesitation one is domestic reason it's just after the Fukushima accident shock and another hesitation that is a difference of nuclear posture with UN so I'd like to ask you Japan's government requires India to to show further stronger commitment for disagreement and nuclear proliferation so what is your idea I think we have been encouraged by the dialogue we've had with Japan particularly in the last round or two we are aware that in Japan there is a vigorous domestic debate about nuclear energy per se which overshadows the kind of cooperation they can have with anybody outside, leave alone but in the last one or two rounds that we have had we have seen a considerable narrowing of differences and I think the Japanese negotiators now do recognize that India's record in terms of its restraints, its export control regimes and its declared nuclear doctrines of you know moratorium on testing and all these issues are reassuring what they need to find is a way in which they can translate this into a balance within their own regulations so that the Japanese industry is also able to participate in the growth of India's nuclear estate which it is very keen to do and particularly since it sees great opportunities in this sector I believe also that within Japan there has been, it's interesting in the years since Fukushima something of a change in the last few months on the issue of nuclear energy also and I think this change will be reflected in the way they take the discussions with India forward so on the whole we are optimistic it's not quite a done deal yet but I think we are optimistic we are getting close to the time that we're going to have to call the session to a halt but there are so many we had talked about how to handle the questions but could we do something here a great benefit to our visitors is to hear what is on your minds your questions indicate what are the issues of most importance to you so I think that would be instructive if I could take about four questions hopefully some will be those that others are waiting to ask ask for about four questions and then we'll ask the foreign secretary to deal with those but I'd like for him to get a sense for other things on your minds so we'll take one here and then one next there on the second row then on the lady with her hand up here and then this lady here if you all got where I was pointing sorry I was pointing so let's take four questions and then we'll try to do a bit Mr. Secretary I'm Sally I'm Sally McNamara from Raytheon you've mentioned about energy and the other national assets that you're building in terms of coping with your international growth one of the things you didn't mention is the most advanced national airspace infrastructure that you're building I wonder if you can talk about your overall ambitions for your national assets that you want to build and how as a commercial company we can help you in those endeavours thank you Jonathan Boder from Congressional Quarterly there's a lot of concern on Capitol Hill over the role that India might play in Afghanistan after US troops withdraw in 2014 I was wondering if you might address that Mr. Secretary Wolfgroves now an independent consultant on the region a quick question you mentioned Afghanistan Pakistan that direction which is more of a westward direct your attention if you would sir to Burma which the US government has all of a sudden discovered and perhaps expand a little bit on Burma from an Indian viewpoint thank you the last question here young lady you had mentioned India's increasing engagements with East Asia South East Asia and the Pacific I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on a potential area of the US and India to work together which is on South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka Maldives is there any room there for the US and India to work together on these countries in this region has there been any discussion on that thank you oh yes I'm Nalanti from CNA and I will do a subset of the second question on Afghanistan about India's role in Afghanistan after US troops leave I'd like to get yours just since on the US continuing role in Afghanistan and are we handling our departure in the best way so I'll just add that into an Afghan funding Secretary yeah I think and this is off the record since it's off the record I'll start with another joke that's about the two guys walking in the jungle and suddenly they see this tiger tiger is an Indian thing and one of them takes out his bag and he takes out a pair of Nike running shoes so the other guy turns down to him and says you really think you can outrun the tiger he says no I only have to outrun you so you know when you get to Afghanistan I would like to assure you everybody is trying to outrun anybody else and certainly there isn't a tiger there's no such tigers out there but I think I'll start with Afghanistan if I may because the current situation is that we have as I described invested a huge amount in terms of money in capacity building in assistance to the Afghan government to build its ability mostly in the civilian area reconstruction building its electricity lines giving it the capacity to have a state in fact we have assisting them even with their civil service we are of the view that the Afghan government does need assistance also with capacity building in its security forces so that it can manage its own security limited amount but we would like to encourage the rest of the international community to continue its commitment at least on that side even beyond 2014 to the extent it is possible but even coming between now and 2014 there is a strong possibility that this government with its security forces would be able to continue to govern Afghanistan perhaps it may have to reach some kind forward with its opponents and its enemies but all this is only possible if there is some framework in which there is no continuing flow of arms across the border and these sanctuaries from where the Taliban are based are checked so this is a one of the preconditions I would say for the success of the outcome of any kind of negotiation in regard to Afghanistan we have a relatively limited role in this but I think we have made our contribution by way of the reconstruction assistance and our assistance to the government of Afghanistan in the international context I think by trying to create a regional framework in which you subsume some of these issues relating to the negotiations on a political framework and that is why we thought whether it was called New Silk Road initiative or whatever else you wanted to call it this had potential if you create a structure in which all the players, all the regional countries have a stake then there is a possibility that from to reach that goal you would make the kind of political adjustments you have to so that that kind of regional structure prevails we have done a huge investment start in the iron ore investments in Afghanistan these investments will really come to fruition be successful only if there is some kind of a regional economic framework which makes the evacuation of their products viable so I think these two, three steps together show the direction in which we are trying to move and we are trying to move the entire you might say regional setup we had a discussion on this both in Afghanistan and in Bond when the larger context of negotiations on Afghanistan took place and we believe there is a possibility that this could be one of the ways to reach a political goal through an economic vision that is one possibility it is fraught as I said with the political difficulty which has to be addressed by the coalition who are in Afghanistan and who hold the maximum possibilities for talking to Afghanistan's immediate neighbour Pakistan where much of the problem emanates from so I think that would explain we certainly intend to continue to stay in Afghanistan well beyond 2014 in our current role which is as a provider of assistance as an important market for Afghanistan's goods the Afghanistan trade and transit treaty with Pakistan works at the moment Afghans can sell to India through Pakistan but vice versa you can't do it they can't buy from India if that were to move on through as I said structures of regional economic cooperation then we have a good chance but we will remain committed we will continue to provide them assistance we will continue to train their people including small numbers of their security forces that's on Afghanistan as regards the first question on aerospace I didn't quite get it but if the question was intended what are the kind of assets we'd like to build that was the question on aerospace yes we'd certainly like to build an autonomous aerospace industry just this is one of the areas where I must say we haven't had the kind of outcomes which we had hoped for and for which we made fairly large investments more than four decades ago and this has come into focus once again in the context of two developments one we are trying to develop a small civilian aircraft for passengers but it's still on the drawing board and the likelihood of it coming into even a prototype anytime soon seems a little remote and in the meanwhile today I was talking about the Dreamliner purchase from the US which is a matter which is being discussed again and again and it's from an airline which is on the verge of finding itself going into the red so if we had our own aviation industry we would have been in a much stronger position it's also come up in the context of the latest announced outcome of the defense procurement process which is on the medium range MMRCA where we had an ex-chief of the Air Force write an article say that if our own LCA project the Light Combat Aircraft project which goes back to the 80s when it was conceived had in fact been built and we wouldn't have been in this competition now but anyway it's never too late so we are interested in building an aviation industry which would achieve the kind of successes we have had in two other high technology areas namely space and civil nuclear energy where we developed completely autonomously capabilities which are of world class so I think that is definitely one of the areas we would go but in general I think India would like to be a participant in the high technology industry across the board that is certainly part of our ambition and being a country of continental size being 17% of the world's population we think that's a justified ambition Myanmar or Burma well you know there was a time we used to say we used to be preached at quite often about why are you engaging with the generals in Myanmar and I always turn around and say you're constantly preaching us to us to engage with the generals on the other side of India so what's wrong with the generals on this side they don't even shoot at us you know so but we remain engaged quite strongly with Myanmar I was part of the process of the policy review in the mid 90s when this began and it began for two simple reasons I think the terrible events of 1988 were so shocking that a reaction to it was justified and being a near neighbor an immediate neighbor who had to take in a flood of refugees from the Chin state and from other areas of Burma as it was then called we took a very strong line but it was fairly soon proved that it was quite counterproductive because in the northeastern states of India the security in that area which is the most advanced insurgency can only be built if you have some kind of a working constructive relationship with the Myanmar government and particularly with the Myanmar security forces the second, within three years the Myanmar armed forces had grown from around 230,000 to close to 400,000 all equipped with Chinese weaponry and suddenly you had conceded an entire space which was part of your own country a very close neighbor and a very cordial neighbor to China so we decided that this needed to be balanced and we decided to seek a way out and it was evident right from day one that there was nothing that Myanmar government wanted more than to balance their relationship with China it was clear and all they wanted was that somebody would come forward and talk rationally to them so we did that and we did it at a certain price and one of the financial newspapers of the west it shall remain unnamed greed for Myanmar's resources is what is animating India and you know we lived through all this and we managed it we kept our contacts even with the National League for Democracy and I think we managed to be in a situation where we were able to talk candidly even to Thanshwe and to tell him that in the long run there was no other way out except to go for national reconciliation and inclusive form of government it's worked ultimately not because we said so but it's worked, it's started now and I think we need to encourage this and we are doing what we can and that is why we are investing in the human resource development in agriculture in connectivity whether by road or by rail Myanmar has offered to us to be our link into Southeast Asia by road and rail and we are going to try and do something about this it's not easy, the geography is very challenging a huge amount of resources will be needed but we have a government which is willing to partner with us in this it has said so openly so I think this is an area we are encouraged by the developments the last latest developments and Aung San Suu Kyi's willingness to stand for the elections where that will lead we don't know but anyway I think on the whole it's a very encouraging development and we would like this to be done in a quiet constructive way without creating the sense that we are trying to take over somebody else's space we are not jumping in to replace someone we are there to be a partner with Myanmar authorities incidentally most Burmese call their country Myanmar Burma is the name given to the majority community which is in the middle of the country and that is traditional and there's one theory that it's the Brits who didn't know how to pronounce Myanmar call it Burma I don't know if that's true or not so I think both names are acceptable even to Suu Kyi today South Asia Bangladesh, Maldives etc. yes there are a number of possibilities the US is an observer in the SARC and many of the SARC activities are areas in which we can certainly work together the issues of energy the issues of connectivity these are all areas in which investments from the outside including from the US would be very welcome excellent way to close this I do think that the collaboration that the United States has with India talking about South Asia including Nepal Bangladesh Sri Lanka and now we can talk about Myanmar and Burma we did have different approaches however we got there we now I think through the acceleration of the diplomatic track on behalf of the US I think there's great opportunity for cooperation now in Myanmar I'd like to thank the Foreign Secretary we have at the Wadwani chair here at CSIS our slogan is to help unlock the full potential of the US-India relationship I think we can take that slogan and marry it to your remarks laying out the agenda for all the things that we can be doing in the future and I think we will have a great pathway ahead so thank you so much for your remarks for being here and have a very successful trip here in Washington thank you very much