Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made "remarkable" progress in his first 15 months in office by rolling out a red carpet for foreign companies, but the infamous red tapism of the Indian bureaucracy continues to pose hurdles to investments, the White House has said.
"You can say that," Peter R Lavoy, Special Assistant to US President and Senior Director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council said, when asked if his assessment of the Modi government means both red carpet welcome and red tapism are running parallel to each other.
"I have never seen any Indian government make such quick progress on so many issues, in such a short time. So it is truly remarkable," Lavoy told PTI. "That said, your bureaucracy has a certain worldwide reputation. I think, it has standards that are really unparallelled worldwide. Even though India continues to make progress, we are confident the government recognises their opportunities to move much more quickly to achieve the potential and the vision of the Prime Minister," he said replying to questions on the new government's policies.
The Indo-US equation after Modi became Prime Minister is excellent, he said.
"This is by far the strongest the relationship has ever been. Not only that, it's our leaders President (Barack) Obama and everyone else, Prime Minister Modi and his cabinet look at the future - both sides here see a very bright future where we see a deep opening and expansion of bilateral cooperation and working together to solve regional problems and international problems. We think the relationship is excellent," he said.
Lavoy, who joined the National Security Council early this year, is the White House's point person for all of South Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The wide ranging interview, on various issues of India-US ties, policies of the NDA Government and India's role in the region and the world was held in the historic War Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House.
During the interview, Lavoy praised Modi Government's outreach to its neighbours to resolve outstanding bilateral and border issues and in particular mentioned the recent resolution of the border dispute with Bangladesh.
"We still have a situation where we have unresolved border disputes between India and few of its neighbours.
Fortunately India has resolved its dispute with Bangladesh that was a very positive and a very sudden development. But it still has tensions with China. It still has tensions with Pakistan. So if you look at the overall regional situation. I think there are a lot of positive trends, but there are still some challenges that need to be worked out," he said.
