(Image source from: www.rferl.org)

US ties with India has been on a completely new peak following the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to US to meet President Trump. In recent news, the Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Alice Wells stated saying that United States is committed to building better defence relations and ties with India on the ground of co-development and innovation.

The two nations have already signed the Statement of Intent (SOI) to further strengthen the dialogue on the defence technology operations.

In one of the tweets posted by the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), Wells stated saying, “US committed to building a defence relationship with India grounded in co-development and innovation. DoD U/S Lord’s recent Delhi visit made significant contributions to the furthering Defense Trade and technology initiative, including projects like Lightweight Small Arms technologies.”

The SOI that has been signed between the two nations targets to further help strengthen dialogues on the defence technology cooperation with better pursuit of detailed planning and also making measurable progress through the process. The same has been the highlight on several of the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative projects.

The SOI between the nations was gradually signed following the ninth meeting of the DTTI group on October 24, 2019. The same was co-chaired by some of the well known personalities around including Subhash Chandra, who is the secretary of the Defence Production from the Indian Ministry of Defence along with Ellen M Lord who is the Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition and Sustainment.

The DTTI group meetings are conducted twice a year, once in either of the two nations of India and US. The main objective of the meetings is to find around better objectives for sustainable leadership focusing on the bilateral trade relationships between the two nations.

By Somapika Dutta