US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as part of her five-day visit to the country.
Indian relations with Pakistan are thought to be high on the agenda, along with education and technology.
The countries are also expected to sign deals on arms sales and the building of US-funded nuclear plants.
Correspondents say the visit aims to show the US is committed to Delhi, and to broaden ties between the countries.
As well as Mr Singh, Mrs Clinton will hold talks with her Indian counterpart, SM Krishna, the head of the ruling Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, and the leader of the opposition, Lal Krishna Advani.
The BBC’s Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with Mrs Clinton, says the secretary of state hopes to come away with tangible agreements on trade between the US and India.
She is particularly keen to open doors to lucrative US deals in arms and civilian nuclear energy, says our correspondent.
India’s relations with neighbouring Pakistan are expected to feature prominently in discussions.
The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says that publicly Mrs Clinton has insisted that what Pakistan and India do is completely up to them.
However, he says that everyone in Delhi is clear that it was pressure from Washington that pushed the countries to hold talks in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt last week.
Pakistan-India relations dominated Mrs Clinton’s visit to Mumbai, in the wake of attacks on the city last November that left more than 170 people dead.
India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attack.
Much of the US focus in the region has been on countering militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Climate disagreements
Mrs Clinton spent the first two days of her five-day visit in Mumbai.
Then in Delhi on Sunday, talks focused on climate change, which remains a sensitive subject for developing countries such as India and China, who have so far refused to commit to carbon emissions cuts in a new treaty.
Mrs Clinton also sought to assure India the US would not try to impose conditions that might affect India’s economic growth.
But Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said his government could not accept targets that would limit economic growth.
India argues the US must do more as it has been historically to blame for the emissions.
Mrs Clinton later told reporters she was optimistic a deal on climate change could be reached.
"It’s part of a give-and-take and it’s multilateral, which makes it even more complex," she said, during a tour of an agricultural research facility.
"Until proven otherwise, I’m going to continue to speak out in favour of every country doing its part to deal with the challenge of global climate change."
The key date for climate change is December – when a summit in Copenhagen, Denmark will look to forge a new international treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
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Memo to Clinton: US ain’t top dog
The US doesn’t necessarily lead the pack in world affairs – something Hillary Clinton should remember on her Asian tour
Speaking in Washington before embarking on this week’s Asian tour, Hillary Clinton set out the most definitive version yet of how the Obama administration intends to deal with the world. The US secretary of state spoke of “a new era of engagement based on common interests, shared values, and mutual respect” and of a foreign policy “blending principle and pragmatism”.
Contrasting this collaborative approach with the “for us or against us” stance of the Bush administration, Clinton said the US would opt for diplomacy first when dealing with Iran, North Korea and other nations or adversaries. There were no guarantees of success; and dialogue did not imply acceptance of repressive regimes. But “we cannot be afraid or unwilling to engage … as long as engagement might advance our interests”.
Clinton’s call for a “multi-partner” rather than a multi-polar world is the diplomatic equivalent of police brutality victim Rodney King’s famous (and unsuccessful) plea for mutual tolerance at the height of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots. “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” asked King. Clinton’s similar, less eloquent call for international amity and understanding may also have limited impact. Today North Korea’s hothead leadership lambasted her, saying she resembled “a pensioner going shopping“. So no breakthrough just yet.
More surprisingly perhaps, Clinton’s visits this week to India and Thailand, where she met leaders of south-east Asian nations and her Chinese, Russian, South Korean and Japanese counterparts, suggested to some that the US may struggle to maintain constructive partnerships with its allies, let alone its enemies. These tensions are only partly attributable to George Bush’s toxic legacy and resulting anti-Americanism. They have more to do with perceived changes in the global balance of power, principally a post-crash decline in US clout and a parallel expansion of Chinese and Indian influence.
In Delhi, Clinton was publicly slapped down over pre-Copenhagen pressure from Washington and others for binding caps on carbon emissions, with environment minister Jairam Ramesh complaining about mooted carbon tariffs on Indian exports. At the same time, she acquiesced in Bush’s nuclear technology deal with India, which drove a coach and horses through the international non-proliferation regime, and gave a green light to massive future US arms sales to India, hardly reassuring prospects for Pakistan.
Clinton also appears to have tip-toed around the issue of divided Kashmir, mindful perhaps of British foreign secretary David Miliband’s bruising experience in Delhi earlier this year. This is odd, given the high importance Washington attaches to its Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy and its wish that Pakistani troops, currently deployed along the Line of Control facing India, be redirected into the battle against the Taliban and Islamist militants. These and other strains are certain to resurface once the jolly bonhomie surrounding Clinton’s visit, more resembling a campaign trail meet-and-greet than a diplomatic summit, dissipates.
“Obama is committed to ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty and strengthening the non-proliferation treaty [India is party to neither] … He also intends for the US to be part of the international effort to replace the Kyoto protocol with a treaty-based climate control regime including India, China and other emerging powers,” noted Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Institution thinktank in a recent article. Such fundamental differences do not bode well for the strengthened, strategic partnership with India that Clinton enthused about.
Clinton’s declaration in Thailand that the US was “back” in south-east Asia, and intended to give greater priority to its friends in the region, also elicited mixed responses. Her ever tougher line on North Korea, coupled with US pressure on Asean members to do more to confront the Burmese junta, makes many countries nervous.
This cage-rattling could yet prove counter-productive. Old ally Japan, for example, may be about to elect a party pledged to re-examine the role of the US military in the Asia-Pacific region. Others, such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, are increasingly drawn towards Beijing’s powerful economic orbit. For its part, China itself may no longer be a US enemy – but it remains unclear whether, on a range of international issues, it can really be classed as a friend. Mostly China suits itself. These days it can afford to.
Yet possibly the biggest obstacle to the “new mindset” partnerships Clinton envisaged in her Washington speech is of her own creation – her very old-fashioned assumption that, in all such arrangements, the US will naturally be top dog and pack leader. This is what Iranian conservatives term the “global arrogance”. Memo to HC: it ain’t necessarily so.