
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to the United States has enthused his Indian-American supporters in Silicon Valley who have helped with his schemes such as Digital India and Startup India.
Modi will be at the White House on September 24 to participate in a Quad leaders’ summit followed by his address at the 76th UN General Assembly the next day.
We reached out to Venktesh Shukla, founder & managing partner at Monta Vista Capital and former chair, TiE Global, to know of his expectations from Modi’s visit.
Shukla, who then TiE Silicon Valley president, had in September 2015 hosted a “Digital India Dinner” (photograph on top) for Modi, involving 300 movers and shakers from Silicon Valley. CEOs of tech giants such as Adobe, Cisco, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Google had attended the event.
The geopolitical situation arising out of the Afghanistan pullback is expected to occupy the centerstage, and so is the discussion about the Quad, India’s role in it and the nature of the response to the threat posed by a restless China in the Indo Pacific region.
However, the threat of “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CATSAA) if India goes ahead with the S400 Russian anti-missile defense system is a hurdle.
Asked if there had been any movement on trade since Modi’s last visit in 2019, Shukla said a number of trade and economy-related issues should also come up for discussion.
That the two countries still do not have a preferential trade agreement is a matter of concern, he pointed out. The Trump administration had withdrawn the preferential trade treatment to exports from India and embarked on a negotiation to come up with a new one.
Read More at https://indicanews.com/2021/09/16/what-silicon-valley-expects-from-narendra-modis-us-visit/
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