Grateful to PM Modi for growing friendship between India, US, says Top American Senator

Washington, Mar 3: The United States is grateful to the people of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for growing friendship between the two countries, a top American Senator said here on Wednesday.

"The US India relationship arguably has never been stronger, and the United States is grateful to the people of India and to Prime Minister Modi for our growing friendship," Senator Chris Murphy, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, said.

In his opening remarks at the Senatorial Congressional hearing on India US relationship that he convened, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut said that the bilateral relationship is growing for a good reason. Five years from now, India will become the world's most populous country, home to about one out of every six people.

It's already the world's sixth largest economy and last year it was the world's fastest growing major economy, he said. India possesses the world's second largest military, he said.

During the global pandemic, India's biopharmaceutical industry has emerged as a key producer to the United States and the rest of the world of PPE therapeutics and vaccines, he explained. Having the world's most populous country, a democracy when so many other large and growing nations are not, is clearly a great benefit to the United States, Murphy said, as he emphasised that this relationship has bipartisan support.