India and the United States have entered a "new era'' in the field of doing business and the attention deficit which plagued the relations has now been done away with, S. Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary, said on Monday.

Delivering a talk on 'India-US 2015: Partnership for peace and security', he said much of the obstructions, which prevented the two countries from engaging in the field of commerce, had now been done away with.

The Foreign Secretary accepted that a lot will depend on how the Indian Government is able to increase the 'ease of doing' here.

The two-day conference has been jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Vivekandana International Foundation, among others.

Taking a historical perspective of India-US relations, Jaishankar said that during the first 50 years there was limited convergence between the two nations. "The US objective was to keep India in play as a nation, a society, a power which expected economic aid,” the Foreign Secretary pointed out.

Fast forwarding to present, Jaishankar said that if people were overly anchored in the past, then they will not see the opportunities which exist between the two countries but cautioned that if the expectations were overstated than there was the "risk of coming up short'', he said, adding that this creates its "own backlash''.

He added that India needs to be careful as to how "position and manage” the relationship.

Talking about the defence cooperation between the India and the United States Jaishankar said that it was "broadly moving” in the right direction.

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