Washington DC – The United States is playing host to a number of Indian ministers led by S.M. Krishna, Minister of External Affairs, who is slated to co-chair with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the third India-US Strategic Dialogue on June 13, 2012 in Washington DC.
According to the Indian Embassy in Washington DC, Indian External Affairs Minister Krishna will be accompanied by Minister for Science and Technology Vilasrao Deshmukh, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Prime Minister’s Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation Advisor Sam Pitroda, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath, Minister of State for Planning, S&T and Earth Sciences Ashwini Kumar, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai, Home Secretary R.K.Singh, Director of Intelligence Bureau Nehchal Sandhu, Secretary for Higher Education Ashok Thakur and other senior officials.
The public appearances kick off from Monday with Indian Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington based think tank. The issues Sibal is planning to cover: What are India’s challenges and successes in the development of human capital, and what are the bilateral opportunities for collaboration in skill development and education?
Sibal will chair the Higher Education Dialogue with Secretary Clinton on June 12 while Deshmukh co-chairs the Joint Science and Technology Commission Meeting with John Holdren, President Obama’s Senior Advisor on Science and Technology.
Ghulam Nabi Azad will co-convene with Secretary Clinton and UNICEF, a Call to Maternal and Child Care Action on June 14-15 in Washington.
In addition, there will be several sub-dialogues on the margins of and preceding the Strategic Dialogue, including the Global Issues Forum, Homeland Security Consultations, Strategic Intelligence Dialogue, the Counterterrorism Joint Working Group, Cyber Consultations, the Information and Communications Technology Working Group, the Women’s Empowerment Dialogue and the Dialogue on Health Cooperation.
S.M. Krishna will meet with Secretary Clinton on June 13 before they chair the Plenary Session, which will discuss five themes:
- Strategic, Defence, Homeland Security, Counter-terrorism and Intelligence
- Economic, Energy, Climate
- S&T, Innovation and Health
- Higher Education and Empowerment
- Regional Strategies and Linkages
The Strategic Dialogue is the principal platform to bring together the different strands of the broad-based and diverse agenda of bilateral engagement and to pursue the vision of the India-US Global Strategic Partnership, outlined by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama.
After the joint announcement to host the Strategic Dialogue in July 2009 in Delhi, Secretary Clinton hosted the first Strategic Dialogue in June 2010 in Washington, while the second Strategic Dialogue was held in July 2011 in Delhi.
