NEW DELH: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in India on Monday night in the shadow of triple bomb blasts in Mumbai, with regional security as well as growing trade links high on the agenda.
Clinton will hold "strategic dialogue" talks with leaders in New Delhi before heading south to Chennai, a city that is undergoing rapid expansion as the country's economy opens up to foreign investment.
Her arrival in India late on Monday comes after the blasts in Mumbai last week that killed 19 people and injured more than 130 in the latest reminder of the region's struggle to crack down on terror attacks.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but relations between India and arch-rival Pakistan have been undermined in the past by militant strikes in India that the government blames on Pakistan-based groups.
Pakistan's instability and the threat of the Taliban's re-emergence in Afghanistan are likely to feature in Clinton's discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday.
India is wary of the planned US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, fearing that Islamist elements within Pakistan could take advantage of a power vacuum in the war-torn country.
New Delhi broke off its peace process with Islamabad after the deadly November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which were blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group.
Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia programme at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the latest attacks "will inevitably colour Secretary Clinton's visit."
Clinton will also put much of the focus on her three-day trip on economic ties, which have been fast improving but which many see as yet to fulfil their potential.
A landmark deal between the two countries in 2008 that allowed India to buy nuclear reactors and fuel was meant to lead to major contracts for US firms, but legal obstacles and uncertainty have undermined such hopes.
And the US was deeply disappointed in April when its bidders were dropped from the $12-billion competition to provide India with 126 combat aircraft, one of the largest military contracts of recent years.
"The depth of the US-India Strategic Dialogue demonstrates the United States' strong support for India as an important actor on the world stage," a statement from Clinton's office said before the visit.
It said that Chennai had been chosen for a stop as the city has become a centre of the international trade and investment "that is driving the US-India relationship."
Ahead of Clinton's trip, which comes after US President Barack Obama's visit last year, government spokesman Vishnu Prakash said that it was "no exaggeration to say that the relationship has got transformed in recent years."
He said that in 2010 bilateral trade increased by 30 percent to nearly $50 billion and that, including goods and services, the US was India's largest business partner.
Clinton, who was in Athens on Sunday to offer support for the Greek government as it tries to tackle its perilous and worsening debt crisis, is scheduled to head on to China, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
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