Sushma Swaraj leaves for Washington: India’s American diplomatic season about to start

India’s American diplomatic season is about to start and be in full bloom from early next week. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj left for Washington DC early on Sunday for the first ministerial of the India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) to be held on 22 September. The India-US bilateral relations will come under deep focus at the highest level from both sides as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be leaving for the US on 23 September morning. A day before his departure, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will meet under the chairmanship of the prime minister and clear a $3.1 billion deal to buy Apache and Chinook helicopters from the US to send a positive message. [caption id=“attachment_2405040” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. AP[/caption] The helicopter deal will set the right tone and tenor for PM Modi’s summit meeting with President Barrack Obama in Washington on 28 September. The prime focus of the Modi-Obama summit will be on strategic, economic, trade and investment issues and thrash out ways to take this bilateral relationship to a new level. Incidentally this will perhaps be the first time when a prime ministerial visit to the US is happening without a briefing from the Ministry of External Affairs on the visit. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had planned to brief the media on PM’s US visit on 17 September but that day he had to air dash to Nepal on an urgent bilateral agenda. He has just returned from Kathmandu and is now leaving for the US for S&CD. The S&CD will set the stage for the Modi-Obama summit. The very fact that the India-US Strategic Dialogue has been renamed as S&CD by incorporating commercial aspects shows the growing importance of trade and business relations between the two democracies. With a $100 billion two-way trade, the US is India’s largest trading partner. The two nations have decided to raise this to $500 billion in next few years though no time line has been set for achieving this ambitious target. S&CD is the most comprehensive mechanism for discussion and deliberation on the specifics of bilateral agenda of cooperation in different fields which will focus on six key areas. These are: infrastructure, services, standards, business climate including ease of doing business, innovation, entrepreneurship and skill development and cooperation in technical textiles and guar gum. India and the United States launched the Ministerial-level Strategic Dialogue in July 2009. The decision to elevate the India-US Strategic Dialogue into a Strategic and Commercial Dialogue was taken during the visit of US President Barack Obama to India in January 2015. Sushma Swaraj will lead the Indian delegation to the S&CD. The delegation includes Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce & Industry & Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal. The US delegation would include Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. According to the MEA, during the S&CD, several bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest would be discussed between the two sides. The S&CD is expected to review the entire gamut of bilateral relations between India and the US and also identify possible areas for future cooperation including in strategic, defence and security; energy and environment; science & technology & space; health, education and human development; third country engagement; economy and finance; and trade and investment fields.