The three-day dialogue is the first highlevel interaction between the two sides since the December 12 arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York. It signifies a ratcheting down of tensions after tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats. Khobragade returned to India on Friday after being indicted by a US grand jury for alleged visa fraud. India asked a US diplomat of the same rank as Khobgrade to leave the embassy in Delhi.
Sources told Mail Today that US Embassy officials were reportedly relieved that the intelligence dialogue could continue despite the diplomatic tensions.
Last week, two senior US officials, assistant secretary of state Nisha Desai Biswal and Energy secretary Ernest Moniz, postponed their individual visits to New Delhi scheduled for this month.
The bi-annual intelligence dialogue, hosted in New Delhi in January and in Washington in June, is held between India's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and its US counterpart, the National Intelligence Council (NIC).
At least six officials from the NIC and the JIC each are likely to participate in the talks in Delhi that span a range of security-related issues. The Indian delegation is headed by Ajit Lal, chairman of the JIC, part of the National Security Council.
The dialogue is seen as crucial for India, whose intelligence agencies are keen to assess the regional impact of a complete pullout of US forces from Afghanistan by the year-end.
The Indo-US intelligence dialogue is a subset of Strategic Dialogue between the two countries. Inaugurated in 2009, the strategic dialogue discusses the full range of US-India cooperation on bilateral and regional issues, economic engagement, regional security and defence, science and technology, climate change, and global issues such as women's empowerment, non-proliferation and space cooperation.
