'By and large, the Clinton visit revealed an India ready to deepen ties with the US,' the Christian Science Monitor said noting that 'in a sign of Mr. Obama's global agenda to look beyond traditional American allies, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign leader to receive an official red-carpet state visit to the Obama White House.

'If Obama is true to his vision, he won't wait too long to travel to India after Mr. Singh's November visit. That gesture would help cement a partnership long overdue between the world's two largest democracies,' the daily said.

Writing in Forbes, Sumit Ganguly, a Visiting Scholar at the Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, said 'the Obama administration has yet to match the lofty rhetoric of the Bush administration when it comes to spelling out a vision for Indo-US relations.'

But with 'Secretary Clinton having spent five intense days in India, one can only hope that the Obama administration will now see India in all its facets and appreciate its growing importance to the US.'

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)