PM Narendra Modi's US visit: Civil N-deal likely to be kept out of agenda

Prime minister Narendra Modi's five-day visit to the United States is mainly aimed at correcting sentiments that have been soured since 2011. Officials here state that though a number of issues related to defence and security partnership, energy relations, economic and investment ties and technology transfer would come up for discussions, the main purpose of the visit is to reverse pessimism that cropped up during UPA-II. The 2005 civil nuclear deal touted as the deal of the century, is virtually a non-starter along with other strategic issues.

Keeping in view Modi's focus on economics, the US visit is also set to give a boost to the Indian markets which are trading in a narrow range for the past couple of weeks. Officials have lined up a breakfast meeting with top 11 US business magnets. In addition, six other magnets will meet the PM individually one-to-one during his packed schedule. He has so far secured investments of $35 billion in the next five years from Japan and $20 billion from China over the same period.

Modi's challenge, however, will be to convince the US government and its companies about the progress in civil nuclear deal. It is not only the American companies, but the Indian firms that have raised their voice against the Nuclear Liability Law which makes companies liable to pay damages in case they are found to have supplied defective parts. Those involved in formulating agenda for the meetings say that the prime minister doesn't want this issue to take away sheen from his visit. Modi is understood to have told his team, he doesn't want the issue – which has figured in every meeting between the leaders of the two nations since 2009 — on the formal agenda, when he meets the US president Barrack Obama.

Sources here said a process to overhaul the agreement in order to make it acceptable to the industry as well as environment has already begun. There are also discussions to rename the "Singh-Obama 21st Century Knowledge Initiative", as "India-US 21st Century Knowledge Initiative". Modi has been averse to naming treaties after personalities. This agreement was reached between US president and the former prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2009 to encourage and fund joint research projects.

In order to address growing energy needs, India is keen to seek cooperation and technology to develop alternate sources of energy, including shell gas. Solar energy and import of LNG and shell gas will also figure prominently in bilateral talks.

US defence secretary Chuck Hagel who will call on Modi had announced last month that Washington was ready to transfer defence technologies for joint production. There are glitches in the issues related to environment, intellectual property right, WTO trade facilitation, which will figure prominently during the talks.

On top of it is the US Immigration Bill that is going to adversely affect Indian IT industry if passed in the current form. The Bill called Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernisation Act aims to impose heavy restrictions and higher fees on H-1B and L1 visa regime for international IT services sector and Indian industry will be adversely impacted as it will create an uneven playing field. India has a long list of demands and expectations from the US but Washington too has its own set of wishes and expectation from the new Indian government.

The US is also reportedly keen to revive the US-India-Japan-Australia Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. India while working to end West supremacy to re-write a world order is still to reply the US whether India was willing to be part of the Quadrilateral security dialogue for which Washington, Canberra and Tokyo have been trying for the last couple of years. The previous UPA government had also declined to be associate itself with it because Beijing sees this dialogue being directed against China.