Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School, writing an Opinion piece ("Let's Learn About India's Market") for the Miami Herald, urges the Bush administration not to coddle China but rather to focus even more strongly on building its strategic and technological cooperation with India.

She makes a case for listening to Indians both in India and the US.

"Increasingly, the noise from India is inside the United States. In Washington, the Indian American Centre for Political Awareness has spent 10 years giving Indian Americans a political voice.

"In April, the Confederation of Indian Industry sent leaders to major US cities for a 10-day blitz. In Seattle, India's science and technology minister met with 200 Indian employees of Microsoft. In New York, officials launched the Indian American Council to connect Indian Americans to opportunities in India," Kanter says.

The IACPA, founded by India Abroad's former owner and editor Gopal Raju in 1994, has its offices in Washington. Unlike most other organisations, it has worked quietly and effectively to establish its credibility as an association that promotes the goals of Indian Americans to become more solidly a part of the American political mainstream.

Its flagship Washington Leadership Programme, among the most competitive in this country, has placed some 130 interns in Congressional offices since 1994, a key to achieving the many gains for the Indian American community and the growing bilateral relations between the two democracies.