India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao in her talks with top American officials focussing on President Barack Obama’s November visit to the country expressed concerns over visa fee hike.
Rao met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Adviser Gen (Retd) James Jones and other key officials of the Obama Administration yesterday. The meeting aimed at ensuring a successful Presidential visit to India.
US President Barack Obama is expected to make a visit to India in November 2010. Obama would be the first US president to visit India in his first term. Some issues that are expected to be discussed are the Ohio’s state ban on outsourcing and the hike of fee for the H1B visa. The US Congress has recently passed a bill hiking H1B visa in order to provide better finance for the security of the US borders. However, a senior official reported that these issues would not hamper the relation between the two countries.
It is also true that the hike on the H1 visa and ban on outsourcing has definitely given rise to anger and resentment. These would definitely be point of discussion during Obama’s visit. Talks are still going on but for final conclusion on the same, Obama’s November visit will be crucial. It is expected that President Obama’s India visit would take the US relationship with India to another level where H1B visa issue would not be a barrier.
