The United States and India said today they had agreed a defence pact that takes a major step towards allowing the sale of sophisticated US arms to India as it modernises its military.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Delhi had also approved two sites for US companies to build nuclear power plants, offering American companies the first fruits of last year's landmark U.-India civil nuclear cooperation pact.
The announcements gave Ms Clinton tangible accomplishments as she ended a trip to India designed to deepen ties and to demonstrate President Barack Obama's commitment to India's emergence as a player on the global stage.
In a clear gesture of US favour, Clinton said that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had accepted her invitation to make a state visit to Washington on November 24 in what would be the first such visit by a foreign leader under Mr Obama.
The centrepiece of the visit was the announcement that the two sides reached an "end-use monitoring" pact that Ms Clinton said would pave the way to broader defence cooperation.
Required by US law for the sale of sophisticated weapons systems, the pact would let Washington check that India was using any arms for the purposes intended and was preventing the technology from leaking to others.
India is expected to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years on upgrading its largely Soviet-made arsenal, roughly a third of which will be a contract to buy 126 multi-role fighters.
Reuters