Modi, Obama now on a hotline

Special assistant to US president says the two leaders are yet to use the hotline

A hotline between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama as well as between their national security advisers has recently become operational.

Peter R Lavoy, special assistant to the US President and senior director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council of the White House said, "It [hotline has] just recently been established."

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"Hotline has connotation of some crisis management phone or system that was used during the cold war to defuse crisis. That's not what we have. This is a secure line between two very very close partners so that they can exchange views at the heads of state level...exchange views and co-ordinate approaches to solving real problems,” Lavoy added.

When asked whether the two leaders have used the secure line of communication, he informed that it has not been used so far.

The decision to establish a Modi-Obama hotline was reached during Obama’s visit to New Delhi to attend India’s Republic Day on January 26, as its chief guest. At the joint press conference, a day before, Modi had said that the two leaders have decided to give this critical partnership its due trust and sustained attention.

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"For this, we have agreed that India and the United States must [have] regular summits at greater frequency. And we also established hotlines between myself and Barack and our national security advisers," Modi had added.

The two leaders are expected to meet in New York in September when Modi comes to the US to attend the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly.

India is the fourth country, after Russia, Great Britain and China, with which US has a hotline. Also, for India it is the first hotline at the head of state level.

In 2004, Pakistan and India agreed to establish hotlines at the level of foreign secretaries and in 2010, India and China announced to establish a hotline at the foreign minister level. However, the New Delhi-Beijing hotline is not yet operational.

This article originally appeared on The Times of Inida