India-US relationship now can be as ambitious as we choose to be: Amb Ranganathan

WASHINGTON: Highlighting the journey of change between India and the US, especially the significant progress made in the last 20 years, a top Indian diplomat has said the relationship between the world's two largest democracies now can be "as ambitious as we choose to be." India’s Deputy Ambassador to the US, Sripriya Ranganathan also appealed to Indian and Indian-origin students at Stanford University to stay connected with India.

She was speaking at the Stanford India Dialogue, the Leaders of Tomorrow Conference organised by Stanford India Policy and Economics Club (SIPEC) in partnership with the Motwani Jadeja Foundation.

Standford Professor at its School of Medicine Dr Anurag Mairal, who was instrumental in organising the conference, said this is the first India conference of this size on the West Coast. “The US-India partnership is going to be the most defining partnership of its kind for the next three decades,” he said.

Addressing the students’ gathering, Deputy Ambassador Ranganathan said, “The broader India-US strategic partnership, I think, we have now reached a stage where we can say that the partnership has come into its own. We have achieved a lot over the past 70 years. But what we have achieved over the past 20 years has been at a different level altogether.” “And I would say that now we are at a stage where we can be as ambitious as we choose to be. We can decide to set our goals, set our sights on targets that were unimaginable a few years ago, and we can,” she said at the conference.

“Not only can we be ambitious, but we can also be confident that we can make these things work, we can bring to implementation ideas that would've seemed outlandish even 20 years ago,” Ranganathan said as she cited the example of the India-US relationship in the field of space and the area of emerging and critical technologies, sectors in which scientists and policymakers from both the countries are actively engaged.

The top Indian diplomat urged the students, in particular those from India and of Indian origin, of Stanford to stay connected with India. “I would urge you to maintain your connections with India and bring some of this learning back to India so that we are also able to benefit from the knowledge you're picking up over here.” “The second is a bridge of collaboration. If you can join hands both on campus and beyond with your friends, your peers in the US, and professors in the US, and be able to pursue excellence in partnership with them, I think that is an area of exploration that we feel would yield us tremendous dividends going forward,” she said.

“The third bridge is the bridge of culture. If you can in your conversations, in your interactions, share the cultural perspectives, share your stories, break down the stereotypes and spark off that interest in India, in knowing about India and experiencing India with your colleagues and friends and fellow students here on campus,” the Indian diplomat said.

India's Consul General in San Francisco, K Srikar Reddy, told the participating students that after gaining knowledge at Stanford, most of them will prosper not only here but also go back to India and become part of the overall Indian development.

Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to all Indians living in India and abroad, especially the youth of the country, to make India a developed country by 2047, Reddy said: “We are expecting India to be a USD 35 trillion economy by 2047 and we are also expecting India to overtake the US economy in 2060.

"It means you'll be seeing India as a big, developed country and each one of you is going to become partners in India's economic growth,” he said.

Indian-American venture capitalist Asha Jadeja Motwani said the Indian diaspora in the US is five million strong and also the highest income diaspora, as far as the US system goes.

“(This is) our second motherland, which has given us so much, and we are contributing back in terms of we are two per cent of the population, but we are six per cent US taxes now," she said.

“What is its impact in the US? Again, it's massive, especially in two fields. One is in IT in technology as in Silicon Valley, we are a huge influence here in terms of innovation. My late husband, Rajiv Motwani, who was a professor at Stanford University, was instrumental in creating the Google algorithms and in the creation of Google as a company,” she said.