US think tank launches India: 2020 to improve India-US ties

A top US think tank has launched a programme entitled “India: 2020” to identify policy priorities in the India-US strategic partnership and provide recommendations that can be translated into reality by 2020.

Center for American Progress (CAP) announced the decision to open the programme after US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a keynote address on the India-US relations, before departing to New Delhi for the fifth strategic dialogue to be held on July 31.

“India: 2020 builds on that success by showing how the United States and India together can tackle global challenges, from security in the Asia-Pacific, to providing clean energy, to delivering more inclusive growth,” Kerry said.

“India: 2020 is an initiative focused on elevating the foreign policy debates in South Asia by looking at the short- and long-term US policy priorities as India has emerged as a major player regionally and globally after three decades of impressive economic growth and military modernization,” says CAP in a mission statement.

The programme’s advisory council is made up of former senior officials from the US department of State and defence, Indian- American business leaders and South Asia scholars.

Given the importance of what US president Barak Obama called the “defining partnership of the 21st century”, the initiative taken by CAP is praiseworthy. India: 2020 seeks be a bridge to bring the world’s oldest and largest democracies closer.

The programme derives its name from a 2006 interview with the then-Senator Joe Biden spoke of a “dream that in 2020 the two closest nations in the world will be India and the United States. If that occurs, the world will be a safer place.”

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