(Image source from: www.forbes.com)

An ammendment to the National Defence Authorization Act(NDAA) is supported by a top US lawmaker in order to include India in the Nato plus five countries by pushing for strong defence ties with New Delhi.

A legislative provision was passed by the US Senate, which brings India with America’s Nato allies to increase the defence cooperation and after few months the move to include India in the Nato plus five countries.

“Our defence ties with India is growing. We conduct more joint exercises with India than any other country. We are of course selling more defence items to India,” said the outgoing chairman of the house foreign affairs sub committee on Asia Pacific, the Pacific and non-proliferation, Congressman Brad Sherman.

Sherman told that early this year he joined his Congressional colleague Joe Wilson in introducing a bill to hasten arm sales to India by putting India in the same category as America’s closest allies, on Thursday, at an event where he addressed the select audience of influential Indian-Americans and members of the Jews community.

US India security council leading a group of Indian-Americans pushing such a move, considering the defence trade and technological transfers would bring India at par with the Nato countries.

There shall exists a lasting impact of the India-US defence with a legislative change in NDAA in this regard.

Sherman, a friend of India from decades said, “and soon India should be in that category.”

Influential members of the Jewish-American and Indian-American community supported Sherman. The Jewish-American and Indian-American community asserted that it is high time for the legislative changes to be made that are necessary in the NDAA to bring Indi8a at par with Nato allies.

“We have worked successfully with the US-India security council (USISC) for the passage of the US-India civil nuclear agreement and now with USISC for the inclusion of an amendment to the NDAA, expanding Nato plus five to Nato plus six to include India,” said a member of the board of governors of American-Jewish committee(AJC), Peter R Rosenblatt.

Ramesh V Kapur, a Boston based USISC president stated that legislative changes in NDAA would institutionalize the defence relationship of India-US.

“Now we are trying to get India to be Nato plus six. Now, its Nato plus five. What we’re trying to do is very simple. We are trying to keep 375 million Americans safe and 1.3 billion Indians safe. And once this is passed, it will be on a permanent basis,” Kapur said.

By Shrithika Kushangi