Whitepaper on Asia new turn for Indo-Aus ties: think tank

Australia India Institute (AII) Director Amitabh Mattoo said Australia-India relations could eventually become an alliance based on common values and interests and the white paper on the Asian century would help achieve this.

He said the roadmap cited in the whitepaper which includes annual meetings between leaders, and recommendation to include Hindi as one of four Asian languages to be taught in schools, was a positive new turn for the relationship.

Mattoo said despite the huge differences in the size and cultural moorings of the two nations, few countries had so much in common in terms of values and interests as Australia and India today.

"In fact, I can't think of a single area where India and Australia's interests clash... The opening of talks on the sale of Australian uranium to India this month meant there were now no barriers to expanding relations," he said.

He said it is bound to be an asymmetric relationship -- in terms of population, in terms of the scale of the economy -- but Australia has had asymmetric relationships with the UK and the US due to reasons of tradition and security.

"But these ultimately were also relationships based on a sense of equality, and the sense that even though you might have disparities in terms of power, you relate to each other as equals," he said.

He said there were caveats also to this optimistic outlook for the Australia-India relationship's potential but Australia could help in the field of providing India's next generation new skills.