President Barack Obama’s visit to India has set the foundations for a deep and broad partnership that will create a new powerbase in Asia alongside China if things go as planned. I am currently in Delhi for the visit and can report a new openness and realism in the bilateral dialogue taking the relationship to a more robust level.

The basic and urgent needs of most Indians are “bijli, sarak, pani”, meaning electricity, roads and safe water. The visit set the foundations for this kind of socially useful growth while also encouraging more business, trade, investment and innovation in most Indian economic sectors.

As a robust and fractious democracy, India is an unruly partner because it often looks at economic, security and political issues differently from the White House or Congress. Although agreements were emphasized during the visit, differences remain on preventing terrorist attacks sponsored by Pakistanis on Indian soil.

Coming weeks will reveal whether Obama’s visit was a feel good moment promoted by fine oratory or resulted in concrete gains for Indians. It is well known that Obama is in real trouble back home because of the midterm election setbacks, persistently high unemployment and other economic problems raising concern that he may not be able to deliver on the economic and other hopes he stoked in India.

Indians really liked Obama and reports said that his name is known even in remote villages where people do not know who is the nation’s Prime Minister. But Michelle Obama was the visit’s star. “They came, we saw, she conquered,” said a headline. Her warmth won Indian hearts when she danced with school goers in Mumbai and squatted on the ground to talk to the children of poor workers at a tourist site in Delhi.

Obama carried forward a process started by Bill Clinton’s visit in 2000 that won hearts in India and thawed a relationship that had been strained for over 40 years. George Bush’s 2006 visit set the track for strategic cooperation by opening the door to civilian nuclear cooperation while accepting India as a nuclear weapon state. He unraveled some significant sanctions placed on India after its nuclear device explosions in 1998.

Sweeping away concerns about India’s nuclear weapons status, Obama took the remarkable step of announcing to India’s parliament that the US will support full permanent membership for India in the United Nations Security Council. This is the first time an American President has made that pledge although the membership may not happen for many years. He said India is now an “emerged” rather than “emerging” country. He also announced an end to sanctions preventing high technology exports to India and pledged that the US will help India to integrate in key nuclear material supplier organizations without requiring it to join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

He won applause for insisting that Pakistan must capture and punish persons responsible for the terrorist attacks on several targets in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 that killed over 170 persons, including six Americans, and wounded over 300. Indians see 26/11 as their 9/11 and want Obama to force Islamabad to act more robustly against those in Pakistan who sent heavily armed and trained terrorists to the city that symbolizes their nation’s economic power.

As a sweetener for Obama, Indians also signed deals to buy about $20 billion dollars worth of military and civilian aircraft, locomotives and other industrial products, which Obama said would create at least 53,000 new jobs in the US. The outlines were drawn for a wider economic relationship to improve infrastructure, agricultural yields, education, clean energy and environment protection among other things.

Almost everything during the visit pertained to good intentions and memorandums of understanding rather than immediate actions. But Obama halted a drift in Indo-US relations that could have gone off track because of a perception in India that he was not as supportive of India’s security and economic needs as Bush. He demonstrated that the priority accorded to India by a Democratic President has not slipped after the previous Republican White House.

Many Indians are pleased at the strong gains of Republicans in the Congress and Senate because they expect more support for India and stronger pressure on Pakistan to eliminate sponsorship of terrorism against India. They also hope for removal of remaining restrictions on dual use technology exports to India allowing quicker buildup of Indian hard military power.

With genuine affection, Obama repeatedly called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh his “good friend” and emphasized common interests. The first test of their personal rapport will come later this week at a G-20 Summit in Seoul where Obama wants Singh’s help to put pressure on China to up value its currency against the dollar. A low Renminbi also hurts India by making China’s exports artificially cheap in the main markets of Indian exporters. But Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is due to visit India in December and Singh may walk on egg shells in Seoul.

UPDATE: Here’s MSNBC’s report on Obama’s India trip: