The government on Tuesday said India and the USA have accepted to finalise an agreement to expend intelligence sharing and terrorist watch list information.

The union home ministry said the matter was sorted after several rounds of detailed discussions between the two countries and the "details of the agreement are being worked out."

Once done the agreement will offer Indian security agencies unhindered access to one of the best terrorist data bases that could handy in preventing terror attacks even at the time of planning and asset moving stage.

The move comes as a big boost to the Indian security establishment, as earlier the US was reluctant to share the data but wanted India to part with its data and information that intelligence agencies maintain in the neighbouring countries. India has even threatened to drop exchange of terrorists screening information from the wish list during recently held India-US Counter terrorism and Homeland Security Cooperation Dialogue.

One reason of US's reluctance was also tough federal laws on privacy that makes data sharing very tough.

Indian security establishment were of the view that without US agreeing to share its internet data bank it would be only one way traffic from India to US that would benefit only the Americans.

The terrorist screening centre (TSC), under US's FBI consolidates several terrorist watch lists maintained by different US agencies into a single Terrorist Screening Data base for identifying those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity.

Sources said the two countries took up the issue again to iron out the differences before the high level ministerial meeting.

Boost to India

The move comes as a big boost to the Indian security establishment, as earlier the US was reluctant to share the data but wanted India to part with its data and information that intelligence agencies maintain in the neighbouring countries. India has even threatened to drop exchange of terrorists screening information from the wish list during recently held India-US Counter terrorism and Homeland Security Cooperation Dialogue.