NEW DELHI — Vice President Joe Biden arrived in India on Monday afternoon for a four-day visit designed to strengthen ties and lay the groundwork for a summit between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama this fall in Washington.
Biden, making his first visit to India as vice president and the first by any sitting U.S. vice president in decades, began his trip by visiting a memorial to Mohandas K. Gandhi, the leader whose nonviolent movement freed India from British rule.
"What a high honor and great privilege to be here in this sacred spot — memorializing one man who changed the world," he wrote in the visitors book at Gandhi Smriti, where Gandhi was killed in 1948.
After meeting senior Indian officials in New Delhi, the capital, the vice president will travel to Mumbai, the nation's financial hub, to deliver a speech urging both sides to boost economic ties well beyond the current $100 billion in annual U.S.-India trade.
Analysts and U.S. officials said they didn't expect to see many "deliverables" — diplomat-speak for signed deals — emerge from Biden's trip. Rather, they said, the visit will focus on tending the relationship, which has flagged in recent months as both countries prepare for elections in 2014 and U.S. companies have grown frustrated over a civil nuclear agreement. India has insisted that foreign companies operating in the country assume nearly unlimited liability for accidents, a condition that all but precludes American firms from participating.
India, meanwhile, is concerned about proposals in Congress that would curb visas for high-tech workers.
The two sides also are expected to discuss Afghanistan. India is worried that the Taliban could return to power there after NATO combat troops depart in 2014. The hard-line Islamist Taliban was strongly allied with Pakistan before it was forced from power in Afghanistan in 2001 by the U.S.-led invasion. India has contributed about $2 billion in aid projects to Afghanistan in recent years, but its activities are viewed warily by rival Pakistan.
mark.magnier@latimes.com
Tanvi Sharma in The Times' New Delhi bureau contributed to this report
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