PM Modi US visit: Initiatives to be taken to ease visa issues faced by Indians, assures Taranjit Singh Sandhu

India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, in an exclusive interview with Business Today said during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden state visit to America, there will be discussions on ease of waiting period of US visas for Indians and a number of initiatives will also be taken to make the process more seamless.

He further said that there is a huge interest in US universities to collaborate with Indian institutions. “There are more than 2 lakh students here and 2/3rd of them are in stem areas. This means there is more desire to have Indian students here. Under the education policy, there is much more interest in having campus to campus relations with Indian universities, intertwining of degrees, having joined research work and much more. This aspect is very important and critical.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden state visit to America is an escalation of the partnership between the two countries. He also said India and the US are taking their partnership to a higher orbit. PM Modi is the third Indian leader to make a state visit to the US. He will also become the only Indian prime minister to address the US Congress for the second time.

While speaking about critical and emerging technologies, Sandhu said that every topic related to emerging tech in various sectors starting from defence to telecom to semiconductor will be covered in this meeting. “Semiconductor, for example, requires a huge trained manpower and India today has the youngest manpower in the world. This has become a substantial relationship between India and US,” he added.

On defence purchases, he mentioned that India’s relationship with the US on defence has become transformational over the years. “It has only gone deeper in the last few years. We are currently talking about co-development and co-creation. There is enhanced trust and confidence between both the countries. Therefore, technology will not be shared with countries who do not share mutual trust and confidence among themselves,” he said.

Sandhu also said that there is bipartisan support for India even in the US Congress which itself suggests that every stakeholder from the US is keenly interested in India’s growth story.

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