India has more credibility with developing countries on democracy promotion and governance than does the United States, a top United States official has admitted, even as Washington is pushing New Delhi to be part of the effort to make this phenomenon contagious worldwide.
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert O Blake told a packed audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC on Thursday that "we are now increasingly talking with our friends in the Indian government about ways in which we can work to promote democracy, transparency, and many of you saw that we had an open-government launch about two months ago with Sam Pitroda."
"We want to try to sustain that app to bring in more countries into the open-government platform initiatives," he said.
Ironically, the catalyst behind the open government initiative in the administration and the joint launch with India was and Indian American -- the erstwhile Chief Technology Officer for President Barack Obama --
India, US tightlipped on waiver from Iran oil sanctions
Geithner's India visit to boost trade ties
The earth is heading towards a point of NO RETURN
US search mission in Arunachal: How will China react?
Panetta pledges to provide technology access to India