'How's Asha?'

What did Narendra Modi tell former Utah governor Jon M Huntsman when he met him? Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.

The Atlantic Council, now headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's friend, former Utah Governor Jon M Huntsman, Jr, jumped on the India bandwagon with a US-India Trade Initiative.

Huntsman -- who also served as the US Ambassador to China and US Trade Representative -- and Modi have known each other since their days as Utah Governor and chief minister of Gujarat respectively. Huntsman led a trade delegation to India, which visited Gujarat.

Frederick Kempe, president and CEO, Atlantic Council, who moderated the conference on 'Unlocking the Potential of US-India Trade,' the first public event of this trade initiative, recalled how when a Council team visited India last year led by Huntsman and met with Modi, the prime minister had hugged Huntsman. The first words Modi uttered even as they continued in their warm embrace were inquiring from Huntsman: ‘How’s Asha?’

Huntsman and his family had adopted Asha, a child from Gujarat, several years ago during Modi's first tenure as chief minister.

Huntsman, who took over as chairman of the Atlantic Council nearly two years ago, said he had visited India twice in the last year "and with each visit, as I have over the last 30 years of visits to India, I sense a growing enthusiasm, desire, and keen willingness to engage deeper and deeper with the US."

"Later this summer," he added, "I’ll be traveling once again to India to host the first workshop of this particular initiative on trade."

"In forging collaborations on issues of trade and commerce, we hope to cement a pathway for broader and more effective cooperation between our two countries through analyses and work that will include a series of workshops," Huntsman said.

The goal of this initiative, he explained, is "simply to provide a forum to discuss some of the key issues coloring the debates and do our part to help leverage commercial and economic collaboration between our two countries."

"As a former trade negotiator," the former USTR said, " I recognize that this endeavor will not happen overnight and there are numerous obstacles to overcome before implementing bilateral trade treaties or even trade and investment framework agreements like the one I worked with some 15 years ago between the United States and India."

"However, the steps we are taking today and during the short-term are crucial to the broader effort," Huntsman added, "and I believe it will be imperative to achieving the joint role set forth of raising US-India trade to $500 billion over the next decade."