Of John Kerry's trip to India....

US Secretary of State John Kerry headed for Saudi Arabia after his three-day official visit to India.
Kerry had arrived on Sunday to co-chair the fourth round of the India-US Strategic Dialogue. He held talks with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Monday as part of the annual dialogue and also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday evening.
On Tuesday morning, he co-chaired the India-US Higher Education dialogue with Human Resource Development Minister MM Pallam Raju during which he said India and the US have the capacity to lead global education.
New Delhi was the second stop on Kerry's two-week tour (June 21-July 2) to seven countries in the Middle East and Asia. He had flown in from Qatar. From Jeddah he will travel to Kuwait City (Kuwait), Amman (Jordan), Jerusalem (Israel) and Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei).
Mr. Kerry said improved India-Pakistan ties are a catalyst for promoting regional trade and connectivity, which in turn could turn around Afghanistan’s fortunes. Last year, India-Pakistan trade had gone up by 21 per cent, but Mr. Kerry said there was still a long way to go. Both countries have had an acrimonious past but there is a new leadership in place in Islamabad which has indicated that economical revival is its number one priority. This approach could mark the “beginning of a new era” and “hopefully improve trust.” While half of his speech was devoted to clean energy and how India needs to be proactive, Mr. Kerry also touched on Afghanistan. India and the U.S. differ on holding talks with the Taliban leadership.
Mr. Kerry sought to draw New Delhi’s attention to next year’s presidential elections in Afghanistan that could mark the first-ever peaceful transition of leadership in recent history. The U.S. wants Taliban to renounce violence, break its ties with Al Qaida and accept the Afghan Constitution before any settlement with the group could be taken up, he said.
 A Chinese expert has described US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to India for bilateral strategic dialogue as Washington's attempts to woo New Delhi to contain Beijing.
"The US purpose is to contain and balance China," Shi Yinhong, an expert on American studies at the state-owned Renmin University told China Central Television (CCTV). "But India has an independent foreign policy, and what New Delhi wants out of the relationship may be different from what Washington is looking for," he said.
"The relationship is a complicated one," Shi said explaining that India has been unhappy about Washington's traditional links with Pakistan. Reservations had been expressed in New Delhi's diplomatic corridors about Washington's approach to Pakistan and the offer of talks with the Taliban ahead of US troop pullout from Afghanistan by 2014.
Beijing believes US concerns about China have played a role in Washington's increasing interest in India. But weeks before his visit to India, the first as Secretary of State, Kerry had called for a "special relationship" with China.