That US President Barack Obama dropped so many goodies into India’s lap is no accident. In a triumph for the quiet diplomacy that went on behind the scenes, Indian diplomats and officials from the Prime Minister’s Office spent months going over the nitty-gritty with their US counterparts as they traversed time-zones and the international dateline.
“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama have met five times before this visit. The foreign secretary has made two trips to Washington to finalise the deliverables. India’s national security adviser has been there twice, and a steady stream of American officials have been in and out of Delhi,” sources said.
The final document, sources now say, was discussed and cleared in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit when US secretary of state Hillary Clinton met Dr Singh.
“India sees this as a very good visit,” senior officials said, pointing to the four big gains — Indian companies being taken off the entities list, access to dual use technology that will give a fillip to Dr Singh’s plans to boost energy security, the much anticipated nod for a seat at the UN high table and a rap on the knuckles to Pakistan as the US President urged Islamabad to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice.
“Everyone said it would be a feel-good trip with no big takeaways. They’ve been proved wrong” the official said.