Experts at a panel discussion held in Washington D.C have highlighted domestic and global challenges amidst rising concerns about economic inequality and a declining human rights environment in India. Along with providing background to these developments, the experts underscored the time that would be needed to reverse these trends. For the U.S., it will remain important to focus on human rights despite growing trade ties between the two countries as well as imperative to counterbalance China in the Indo-Pacific, they insisted.