Assistant Secretary Robert Blake, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs OGPL Speech March 30, 2012

Assistant Secretary Blake:  Good evening.  I'm delighted to join Minister Sibal, Secretary of Communications and IT, Dr. Sam Pitroda, Ambassador Burleigh, my good friend Jawed Ashraf, and of course our colleagues from the White House for today's event marking the release of the Beta version of the U.S.-India Open Government Platform.
 
Today's launch represents an important milestone in the U.S.-India Open Government Dialogue that was initiated by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh in November 2010 and is a really shining example of how we've been leveraging our two counties' cooperation on innovation and technology to advance democracy.
 
This is a great project that will foster research, innovation, and government transparency.

While I'll leave the explanation of the technology behind this amazing tool to my colleagues who work in the field, I'd like to point out the symbolic value of the Open Government Platform to the history and the substance and to the promise of the U.S.-India partnership.

This initiative reflects our shared history of two open, accountable democracies -- the world's oldest and the world's largest.  And what better symbol of this legacy than a tool to give citizens better access to the data produced with their support and their taxes?

This project draws on the talents and the accomplishments of one of the key sectors in our business and people-to-people relationships:  Indian and American software and technology innovators and developers.  Our partnership to share this platform with third countries for free shows the promise of the U.S.-India relationship to promote our values and our vision around the world.

So to all of our Indian friends, let me just say how much we look forward to continuing to partner with you and to advance and scale an important part of our relationship -- a collaboration that has the potential to benefit millions if not billions of people in the 21st Century.  Thank you very much.