PM'S Visit to US 'pathbreaking', Says Foreign Secretary

Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra has described Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US as "pathbreaking".

He said that technological cooperation was among the key points of discussion between India and US, describing it as one of the most substantive outcomes of the Prime Minister's "pathbreaking" state visit to the US.

"Technology, in particular advanced technology, across all domains ranging from defence to space and energy is one of the most important substantive outcomes," he told reporters during a media briefing on Thursday evening (US time).

He elaborated that technological cooperation across the ecosystem was discussed prominently during bilateral discussions between Modi and US president Joe Biden.

"This included technology transfer, services and working together in research among other domains," the foreign secretary elaborated.

Kwatra said that sentiment of exceptional warmth and hospitality ran through the Prime Minister's visit, which was extended to him by the US president and first lady Jill Biden.

Meanwhile, the foreign secretary further elaborated that the visit has been "extremely rich in form and equally, if not more, rich in substance," he said, describing the trip as "path-breaking."

India and the US also launched public-private joint task forces, one on the development and deployment of open radio access networks (RAN), a new approach to build mobile networks that are needed to connect smartphones and devices to the internet and other users and one on advanced telecom research and development.

India's Bharat 6G and the US Next G Alliance will co-lead this public-private research.

To support the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), the US-India Commercial Dialogue will launch a new "Innovation Handshake" to connect each country's start-up ecosystems, Kwatra elaborated.

He further informed that both India and the US have agreed that the latter will initiate the formalities to open two new consulates in India - one each in Ahmedabad and Bengaluru.