When Manmohan Singh arrives at the White House, he will be the honored guest at Obama's first official state dinner — a glitzy affair with political and policy implications for relations between the world's largest democracies.

"India is getting the first state dinner of the Obama administration because it's a large and thriving democracy emerging as one of the major global economies of the 21st century," says Lisa Curtis, a South Asia expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

The White House says the visit, which will include a joint news conference on Tuesday, will "highlight the strong and growing strategic partnership" between the two nations.

For weeks, official Washington has been abuzz over details of the dinner and its closely held guest list. On Tuesday, reporters clamoring for information about the menu, the flowers, china pattern and the entertainment will finally get their fill when first lady Michelle Obama reveals her picks.

It will be the third time in a decade that India has been given the state dinner treatment. Former president George W. Bush feted Singh in 2005. Bill Clinton hosted then-prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000.

Today, the U.S.-India "relationship is at a turning point," says Lee Hamilton, the Democratic former congressman from Indiana and co-chairman of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks.

Relations between the democracies is "clearly taking a turn for the better" since the Cold War days, when India refused to align with either side in the U.S.-Soviet standoff, and the late 1990s, when nuclear weapons tests in India led to U.S. sanctions, Hamilton says. But "the trajectory is by no means certain."

Critical differences remain on issues such as India's resistance to climate change controls, and tensions continue to simmer over concerns in India that China and Pakistan get more attention from the United States.

"India has generally not been pleased with the attention Pakistan has received from the new administration and is jittery about signs of a U.S.-China partnership," says Mira Kamdar of the New York-based Asia Society.

At the same time, U.S.-India ties have strengthened.

Despite its crushing poverty, crumbling infrastructure and significant security challenges, India has become a major world economy, a growing U.S. trading partner and an ally against terrorism, particularly since last year's devastating terrorist rampage through Mumbai that left 166 dead and scores wounded.

"India is the most stable ally the United States has in South Asia right now, and South Asia is the focus of our biggest foreign policy and national security challenge," says Andy Johnson, director of the national security program at the left-leaning think tank Third Way.

He and other experts say the state dinner should be an opportunity for Obama to reassure India that despite his push for global non-proliferation, the U.S. supports the civilian nuclear agreement reached during Bush's presidency that allowed for nuclear trade after a nearly three-decade moratorium.

Evan Feigenbaum of the Council on Foreign Relations says Indians also "are concerned about American staying power" as Obama's decision on sending more troops into Afghanistan looms.

The state dinner alone should be reassuring, he says. "To Indians, symbols are very important, and this goes a long way."

It won't be the first time Obama and Singh have met. Most recently, they got together at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in September.

This time, the visit will be "heavy on good will and very light on substance," Johnson says. "That's not to say the state dinner is not significant. It will be seen as an acknowledgement of the primacy of U.S.-India relations."

Enlarge By Larry Downing, Reuters Workers build the floor to a tent on the South Lawn of the White House, which will be used for a state dinner.