Institutional News

Mariko Silver Speaks about U.S.-India Relations

Bennington College President Mariko Silver recently spoke at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Higher Education Working Group on Global Issues at the CFR headquarters in New York. The working group is exploring the role of colleges and universities in a changing world and how institutions can better meet the challenges of globalization.

Council on Foreign Relations

Silver spoke about U.S.-India relations and the findings of the recent CFR-sponsored independent task force, of which she was a member. She joined Alyssa Ayres, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at CFR, and Marshall M. Bouton, a senior fellow for Asia Society Policy Institute and the president emeritus of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The conversation was moderated by Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, chief international correspondent at CNBC.

The task force’s report, Working With a Rising India: A Joint Venture for the New Century, was released in November. It asserted that:  "A rising India offers one of the most substantial opportunities to advance American national interests over the next two decades.”  

The report recommended that "U.S. policymakers [should] explicitly emphasize a 'joint-venture' model for U.S.-India relations, focused on a slate of shared pursuits on which interests converge—and with clear mechanisms for coordinating and managing the known and expected disagreements."

The task force was chaired by Charles R. Kaye, co-chief executive officer of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus and former chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council, and Joseph S. Nye Jr., distinguished service professor and former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School.