India and the US on Tuesday announced a major partnership to boost cooperation in critical and emerging technologies between their leading security agencies after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden vowed to work together for a more prosperous, free, connected and secure world.
In a meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the Quad summit in Tokyo, Modi described the India-US relationship as truly a “partnership of trust” and said he was confident that the friendship will continue to be a “force for good” for global peace and stability as well as for the well-being of mankind.
In another significant move, India and the US also extended the longstanding Vaccine Action Programme (VAP) until 2027. Separately, the White House announced India joining the Combined Military Forces-Bahrain as an associate member.
In the talks, Modi invited the US industries to partner with India to manufacture in the defence sector under the Make in India and self-reliant India programmes, adding bilateral trade and investment are expanding continuously, but it is still much below their potential.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the meeting “resulted in substantive outcomes” which will “add depth and momentum” to the bilateral partnership.
Following the talks, both New Delhi and Washington announced the launch of the India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) to facilitate outcome-oriented cooperation and that the new mechanism will be co-led by India’s National Security Council Secretariat and the US National Security Council.
The MEA said the iCET would forge closer linkages between the government, academia and industry of the two countries in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 5G and 6G, biotech, space and semiconductors.
It said India and the US also extended the longstanding Vaccine Action Programme (VAP) until 2027 to continue joint biomedical research which had resulted in the development of vaccines and related technologies.
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