WASHINGTON: After President Barack Obama's "game changing" historic India visit, the India-U.S. relationship is poised to move forward in an array of fields across the board, according to a senior U.S. official.

"What we are now looking at is a whole-of-government approach," Phil Reiner, White House's senior director for South Asian Affairs, told foreign media in a round table on Obama's India trip.

"The Commerce Department, the Treasury, NASA, State Department, Defence Department, DHS (Department of Homeland Security), our intelligence community, the FBI - you name it, we're working on it together going forward, and at a senior level," he said.

During the visit, the two sides had also focused on a broad variety of strategic issues: defence, civil nuclear, regional, counter-terrorism, health issues, human rights, economics, trade and education, Reiner said.

To be sure, he said, "there will be a time in the coming months where we again encounter a tough set of issues that we need to work through, a policy crisis or a policy difference that will require senior-level engagement."

But with two summit meetings between Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in September and January they had been able "to institutionalise the elevation of this partnership and create a certain amount of momentum that really cannot be reversed."

In the coming days the two sides "would continue to focus on and need to focus on" what Reiner called "the tough issues" citing need for "further progress on things like intellectual property rights, local content requirements," as examples.

Modi's speech at the business summit was "incredibly encouraging" in this regard, he said, as the Prime Minister "spoke to IPR and other constraints for U.S. business in India."

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Source: IANS