The bi-national United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) was among the earliest of the Fulbright Commissions or foundations. On February 2, 1950, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and US Ambassador to India Loy Henderson signed a bilateral agreement to implement and administer a country Fulbright Program on behalf of the partner governments. Since its inception, USIEF has awarded approximately 11,128 Fulbright Fellowships to Indians and Americans. On July 4, 2008, the United States and India signed a historic new Fulbright agreement that made India a full partner in the governance and funding of the Fulbright Program. Following the new agreement, the Fulbright-Nehru Program has tripled in size. India now has the largest US Fulbright scholar program, which provides approximately 75 grants to US scholars to research and teach in India each academic year.

For more than 70 years, Fulbright has provided opportunities to some 390,000 American and international scholars and students. At the celebrations organised by the USIEF, the American envoy to India, Kenneth I. Juster said, “The US-India relationship is growing rapidly. As I have said many times, I believe that the foundation of our partnership is our people-to-people ties.