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Apparently Human Resources and Development Minister Kapil Sibal -- the Harvard-educated, erstwhile Wall Street lawyer -- still occasionally pines for the United States, going by his waxing nostalgic for the opportunities America afforded him during the time he spent in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Big Apple.
At the reception hosted by the US-India Business Council to celebrate the first-ever US-India Higher Education Summit, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, pointed out that "Minister Sibal is a Harvard law graduate and his two sons studied in the United States."
"So, he knows well the value -- and the cost -- of an American education," Burns said to much applause.
Sibal, who followed Burns to the podium, thanked Burns "for saying those kind words about me, but I want to say, that I am always somewhat nostalgic, because I have hadÂ…spend some wonderful years in the United States of America in your educational institutions."
"And, more than that, I've had the pleasure and the privilege of working in the United States of America," he said.
Sibal pointed out, "I was a lawyer up at Wall Street for several years, when I decided to go back to India."
He said that it was "while I was at Wall Street that I really started discovering America," and but bemoaned, "I must say that the United States of America, has not even begun to discover India."
Sibal acknowledged, "The business community is getting there, but by and large, the people of the United States of America have not yet discovered India," and he exhorted that it is imperative that this "process of discovery must begin in a big way and it has to begin not just through the bilateral partnership -- which is symbolised by the first-ever Education SummitÂ…but also by the pro-active efforts of the business community."
He asserted that this business community "should see India as a land of opportunity, just as India and the world saw the United States as a land of opportunity, which delivered to the world."