"The Secretary (of State Hillary Clinton) looks forward to hosting Minister of External Affairs (S M) Krishna," State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters at his daily news conference here last evening.

Leading the delegations of their respective countries, Clinton and Krishna would co-chair the high-level inter-agency discussions on a range of critical issues, including agriculture, education, energy, trade and counter-terrorism, Crowley said.

"There will be in-depth discussions on global and regional issues. In addition, there'll be separate bilateral meetings, including between Cabinet members and Indian ministers on the margins of the dialogue," Crowley said.

The State Department spokesman also announced that Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns will be travelling to Afghanistan and India next week.

"In Afghanistan, he will build on the progress achieved through the successful visit of (the Afghan) President (Hamid) Karzai and his Cabinet to Washington. In India he'll meet with a range of senior Indian officials and make preparations for the upcoming strategic dialogue," he said.

Also in India, from May 23 until June 4, Ambassador Philip Revere, the US coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, will lead an inter-agency delegation from Department of State, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Homeland Security and National Telecommunications Information Administration to the fifth World Telecommunication Development Conference in Hyderabad, he announced.

The conference is being held under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union.

Burns, who has travelled to India several times since the inauguration of the Obama Administration in January 2009, has developed a personal rapport with top Indian diplomats.

"We have a very rich agenda for cooperation and partnership between the United States and India on a wide range of regional and global issues before us, ranging from health to education, to civilian nuclear cooperation, to defence, to clean energy and climate change," Burns had said during a trip to India last October.

The US-India partnership is one of the real keys to global order and prosperity in the 21st century, he had said.

Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, Burns recently said the US would continue to engage India on such basic issues as education, scientific exchange and human development and it will emphasise on global security challenges.

Specifically, greater US-India cooperation can be expected on counter-terrorism, reconstruction in Afghanistan, non-proliferation and defence, he had said.

"Few relationships around the world matter more to our collective future, or hold greater promise for constructive action on the challenges that matter most to all of us, than the partnership between the United States and India."

India has an increasingly significant role to play on virtually all of the major challenges of this new century -- from global economic dislocation to energy security, climate change, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and violent extremism, Burns had said.

"Its role in Asia, already significant, will only grow in the years ahead, and India will be an increasingly valuable partner in the historic effort to, as President (Barack) Obama put it, 'cultivate spheres of cooperation' throughout Asia.

"A rising India is an essential part of the peaceful and prosperous world that the United States seeks in the 21st century, and our partnership is an essential ingredient for success," he had said.