Sources said the US in principle has agreed to the make India a part of the global entry program which besides US citizens and lawful permanent US residents is applicable only to the citizens of select countries like South Korea, Germany, Canada United Kingdom, Netherlands, Panama and Mexico.
Indian VVIPs – top politicians, officials, celebrities and businessman etc. – can hope to get a hassle free entry in the USA soon. In the upcoming Homeland security meet in July, India is expecting US to make India a part of its global entry program that ensures easy entry without going through harassment at the immigration counters for security checks.
India has been raising this issue for long as many a times its top politicians, including cabinet rank ministers and celebrities have often suffered the ignominy of going through tight security checks at the immigration counters at the US airports. India was hopeful of getting access to the global entry program during President Obama's visit as a national guest on Republic Day last year but the deal failed to materialise between the two countries.
Sources said the US in principle has agreed to the make India a part of the global entry program which besides US citizens and lawful permanent US residents is applicable only to the citizens of select countries like South Korea, Germany, Canada United Kingdom, Netherlands, Panama and Mexico.
Besides, in order to be part of the global entry program, one should not have any criminal record or be connected with any kind of economic offence. India is expected to forward a list of about 2000 such individual for the US global entry program.
India is also expected to solve the glitches and make US come to terms to share the data of its Terrorist Screening Centre with Indian security agencies.
TSC under US's FBI consolidates several terrorist watch lists maintained by different US agencies into a single Terrorist Screening Data base for identifying those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity. It also closely watches all social media platforms to keep an eye on the potential trouble makers. Being weak in breaking through the firewalls of social media platforms, India is keen to seek US expertise in this field.
The reason of US's reluctance so far has been tough federal laws on privacy that makes data sharing very tough. However, officials think that the real reason behind American reluctance is that they do not want India to know the way they gather intelligence around the world and of the tools that can give crucial results in milliseconds.
"But we are hopeful of a breakthrough this time as relations between the two countries have improved considerably and US has lot to gain from India in the fight against terrorism and wants to have close partnership with India on this front," sources said.
Reason for US's reluctance
The reason of US's reluctance so far has been tough federal laws on privacy that makes data sharing very tough. However, officials think that the real reason behind American reluctance is that they do not want India to know the way they gather intelligence around the world and of the tools that can give crucial results in milliseconds.
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