US, Indian security agencies meet

Notwithstanding the strains in ties caused by the Devyani Khobragade episode, officials of India and the United States met today for bi-annual intelligence discussion over wide spectrum of security issues between the two countries.

The sources said a team of the US officials from the office of the Director of National Intelligence and a team of Joint Intelligence Committee(JIC) led by Ajit Lal met to discuss a range of security-related issues.

The Indian side gave its intelligence assessment of the country's neighbourhood whereas the US shared the global perspective.

The three-day dialogue is of importance to India in the wake of proposed withdrawl of US-led troops from Afghanistan this year.

This is the first bilateral interaction between the two countries since the arrest of Khobragade, former Indian consul general in New York, last year, which had led to cancellation of two key American officials Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

The bi-annual dialogue is held here in January and in Washington in June every year to discuss emerging challenges on security front but no active intelligence is shared on the platform.

The Joint Intelligence Committee under the National Security Council receives intelligence data from security and intelligence agencies and analyses it.