WASHINGTON D.C.: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be spending all of his four days in the United States in Washington but much of his engagement will be with what Joseph Nye of Harvard University terms the "soft power" of the United States — its universities, businesses, scientific establishments and cultural bodies in contrast to its military and strategic establishments.

An interesting event during this trip is the start of the CEOs Forum that would bring together 10 chief executive officers from each side for discussions on the trade and investment climate. The first meeting will be held in the White House executive office during the Prime Minister's visit. The Indian group chaired by Ratan Tata includes Mukesh Ambani, Deepak Parekh, Nandan Nilekani, P.C. Reddy, Baba Kalyani and Y.C. Deveshwar, while the American group includes the CEOs of Citigroup, JP Morgan-Chase and Pepsico.

Depth of perspective

The Forum reflects the increasingly private-sector driven nature of the business relationship and the CEOs have been chosen by both the sides for the range and depth of perspectives they could bring to the discussions. Unlike officials who will not be able to go beyond their briefs, the CEOs are expected to bring fresh thinking to bear on the issues. They have not been given any agenda but are expected to take up issues of mutual interest and concern in the areas of trade and investment policy that are also expected to figure in the official talks.

Among the issues of interest to American businesses is allowing foreign pension funds and firms offering accounting and legal services to operate in India, going farther than the roadmap laid out by the Reserve Bank and speeding up the opening of the banking sector to foreign banks and allowing foreign insurance firms a higher, 49 per cent investment limit.

American firms such as Walmart are keen that Indian retail trade be opened to foreign firms but a high official pointed out that there was a debate within India on this issue and stressed that there would be no question of making any announcement of a change of policy outside the country.

The U.S. has also raised the issue of high agricultural tariffs and of non-tariff barriers, including phyto-sanitary regulations and standards that are non-transparent but those will be taken up at the official level in the context of the Doha round of trade negotiations.

An interesting agreement to be signed during this visit is between a consortium of 25 U.S. universities and the Amrita University in India on using ISRO's Edusat to bring to Indian students lectures and courses given by leading American professors. This project put together by the Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, V.S. Ramamurthy, envisages satellite broadcast of the lectures by the professors, including several Nobel laureates that would ultimately reach students in 200 engineering colleges in India. The universities have allowed the use of their course material in this project.

The other areas where specific agreements will be signed include agricultural research and wildlife protection.

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