US-India relations are on a "fundamentally different footing" today and Washington would like to see it "go further", Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.

Rice, considered the architect of the newly emerging strategic partnership between Washington and New Delhi, also said that India's Muslim population was integrating into the society in a way "only democracies can integrate varied peoples and different peoples".

In a lengthy interview on the "Charlie Rose Show", Rice said: "There is no doubt that one of the really biggest changes in recent years is that the US-India relationship is on a fundamentally different footing than it was just a couple of years ago, and we would like to see that go further.

"India is a big, important, multi-ethnic democracy" with a huge Muslim population "where they are integrating into the society in a way that I think only democracies can integrate varied peoples and different peoples".

Rice also referred to a report that quoted Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns telling a US-European group in Brussels May 26 that India was a rising power in the East and that it would be the "area of greatest dynamic positive change in American foreign policy".

Rice said: "In a place like India, where you have many, many different ethnic groups and religions, they can find a place within the democratic institutions; they don't have to try and destroy it from without.

"That's what democracy brings. And yes, the fact that we share a democratic heritage and institutions with India is enormously important."

She said Pakistan was not yet a democracy but had undergone vast changes and President Pervez Musharraf has been a "stalwart ally" in the war on terrorism.

She touched upon "de-hyphenating" the relationship with India and Pakistan.

"Pakistan has to make inroads on democracy. We've been very clear. But let's look at where Pakistan was just a few years ago prior to Sep 11th," she said.

"I think it's fair to say that Pakistan was a country that was on the verge of being overtaken by extremism. It was one of only three countries in the world that had a relationship with the Taliban and it by far had the closest relationship with the Taliban.

"It was a country through which extremists transited all the time and used as a base of operations into Afghanistan and, of course, into Kashmir. It had terrible relations with India."

She recalled how before the 9-11 terror attacks in the US, she tried to convince then Pakistani foreign minister that they had to do more about the Taliban.

"It was very clear to me that I wasn't getting through. Now if you fast-forward to a Pakistan in 2005. You have a president in President Musharraf that made clear a couple of years ago that he did not think a modern Pakistan and extremism could live in the same body.

"He made clear that he wanted better relationship with or better relations with India. He and (former Indian) prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and (present) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are achieving that. You have a Pakistan that will have elections in 2007 and we've been clear that we believe those elections need to be free and fair."

Much of Asia, she said, was turning democratic, and in these countries, "people have a right to say not just what they're going to do at work but how they are going to govern themselves at home and who is going to govern them. And I have to say, Charlie, that that is really the best formula for success."