Washington D.C.: Indian ambassador to U.S. Arun Kumar Singh on Monday said that interaction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and think tanks at Blair House wasn’t aimed at “perception management” and was to see their visualisation of opportunities and trends.
“This exercise was not aimed at perception management. This exercise was aimed at, as I described understanding how thought leaders here, leaders of think tanks look at global issues and trends. What do they visualise and see mid-term and longer time challenges. In those what are the opportunities for India and United States to be able to work together to address those challenges in a way that would meet India’s national interest and of course would be of interest to the U.S., ” said Singh.
On being asked about perception crises that thought leaders think that reforms were not taking place at the right pace, Singh replied, “Look in all democracies there will be different shades of opinion and you refer to one particular assessment about economic reform or whatever. But I can tell you, I hear from a large no of people here that there is a very-very positive assessment of the reforms that have taken place in India in last two years.”
He also cited a few examples that U.S. equity investment in India which was Seven billion dollars in 2013 was twelve billion today and that the FDI flow into India last year went up to 50 percent.
Responding to a question on visiting Prime Minister’s lunch being hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama tomorrow, the envoy said that it would be a working lunch and National Security Adviser (NSA) and Foreign Secretary will be present.
Regarding the Prime Minister Modi’s engagement with the Indian community, he said, ” As far as the reference to the Indian -American community is concerned, clearly from Prime Minister’s visit earlier, the ongoing visit and his own comment it is clear that he sees a very important role for the Indian-American community in advancing the relation between India and United States.” (ANI)