Top US diplomat Donald Lu to travel to India from Sept 5-8

Washington [US], September 4 (ANI): To deepen the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership between Washington and New Delhi, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu will lead a US delegation to India from September 5-8.
Assistant Secretary Lu will be joined by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Camille Dawson for a Quad Senior Officials Meeting and Department of Defence Assistant Secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner for a US-India 2+2 Intersessional Meeting and Maritime Security Dialogue, read US Department of State press release.
The delegation will meet with senior Indian officials to discuss how the United States and India can expand our cooperation to support a free and open, connected, prosperous, resilient, and secure Indo-Pacific region where human rights are respected.
Lu will also join an event under the US-India Alliance for Women's Economic Empowerment with female entrepreneurs, an event aimed at increasing economic security through women's meaningful participation in the workforce, added the release.
He will also engage in a roundtable discussion with senior business executives about how India can realize its full economic potential over the next 25 years to become a central hub in global supply chains.
Notably, India is the centrepiece of the Joe Biden administration's Indo-Pacific strategy - Indian Foreign and Defence Ministers recently held the '2+2' meeting with their American counterparts.
India-US bilateral partnership today encompasses a whole host of issues including the response to Covid-19, economic recovery post-pandemic, the climate crisis and sustainable development, critical and emerging technologies, supply chain resilience, education, the diaspora, and defence and security.
The breadth and depth of Indo-US ties remain unmatched and the drivers of this partnership have been growing at an unprecedented rate.
The relationship remains unique insofar as this is driven at both levels: at the strategic elite as well as at the people-to-people level.
Although India and the US have quite contradictory responses to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, in the recent meeting, the PM of India and the US President expressed that the world's two major democracies are willing to work around their divergences to arrive at mutually acceptable outcomes.
India and the US have underscored their commitment to continue building on recent years' momentum and not lose sight of the larger strategic picture.
The defence partnership between India and the US continues to multiply with the US secretary of defence underlining that the two nations have "identified new opportunities to extend the operational reach of our militaries and to coordinate more closely together across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific."
The US also pointedly mentioned that China was constructing "dual-use infrastructure" along the border with India and that it would "continue to stand alongside" India to defend its sovereign interest. (ANI)