Former senior Administration policy expert on South Asia, Daniel Markey, just back from Pakistan after meeting senior political and security officials in Islamabad, has said that for all of the internal terrorist attacks and continuing existential threats from extremist elements in Pakistan, India is still perceived as the primary security threat.
Egged on by more than 160 venture capitalists, including several Indian Americans, US Senators John F Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, have introduced a legislation to create jobs in America and increasing America's global competitiveness by helping immigrant entrepreneurs obtain visas to the United States.
Kiran Ahuja, the founding executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, has been appointed by President Barack Obama as executive director of the White House Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders.
Manisha Singh, an erstwhile senior staffer of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former political appointee during the George Bush Administration, has landed a top job as the executive director of the Barer Institute based at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle.
A leading Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notwithstanding the arrest of retired Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka who challenged President Mahinda Rajapakse at the recent elections, and the country's poor record on human rights and its treatment of several thousand internally displaced persons, has said that the United States cannot afford to disengage with the island nation.
United States President Barack Obama last week appointed his Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House, Rashad Hussain, 30, to serve as his Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- which comprise over 50 member states and is the second largest inter governmental organisation in the world.
Suresh Kumar's nomination by United States President Barack Obama, to be assistant secretary of commerce and director general of the United States and Foreign Commerce Service, sailed through two key US Senate Committees last week.Now the full Senate has to vote on his nomination, and sources said he could be in place in his job at Commerce by late February or early March.
Leaders from South Asian and Arab American communities and from religious groups met recently with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to discuss joint efforts against domestic extremists. They also brought up concerns over discrimination and racial and religious profiling in the wake of rules imposed after the Christmas Day terrorism attempt by Nigerian suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.
Al-Qaeda and other terror groups like the Taliban and their affiliates are planning to strike against American facilities and its nationals in South and Central Asia, the United States said on Saturday.
The Kashmiri Pandit leadership from across the United States, led by California-based community activist Jeevan Zutshi, last week met senior Obama administration officials at the State Department and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to implore them to help address the plight of the Pandits in India.
Dr Sambhu N Banik, professor of psychology and counseling at Bowie State University, has been invited to chair the section on health as a human right at the Global Consultative Meeting on Human Rights and the Right to Health in Bangalore, February 15-16.
Diplomatic and political observers in Washington said that the controversy had now moved beyond simply targeting Chatwal and a deliberate effort to embarrass Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and his Principal Secretary T K A Nair by not just the saffron lobby but by vested interests within the Congress.
The senate banking committee and commerce committee approved Kumar's nomination, which was buoyed by a rousing introduction of Kumar by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, where Kumar has resided since 1993, and it's now the full senate that has got to vote on his nomination, and sources said he could be in place in his job at commerce by late this month or early March.
Special United States Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, who was once speculated to be US President Obama's trouble-shooter to Kashmir, is so sensitive to creating an uproar in New Delhi if he speaks about Kashmir, that he doesn't even want to say the 'K word.'
In yet another step towards full implementation of the United States-India civilian nuclear deal -- which the Obama administration has been accused in some quarters of not being fully committed to -- US President Barack Obama on Wednesday issued a memorandum certifying the agreement between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency of the Safeguards Agreement on India's civilian nuclear facilities.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in United States has said that 'in keeping with its status as an emerging world power, the government of India exerts strong leadership in global and regional, for and in important bilateral relationships.'
He said that while Pakistan public opinion favouring Al Qaeda and the Taliban have declined precipitously in the past year, "on the other hand, despite robust Pakistani military operations against extremists that directly challenge the Pakistani government authority, Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Pakistani militant groups continue to use Pakistan as a safe haven for organising, training and planning attacks against the United States and our allies in Afghanistan."
CIA Director Leon E Panetta said: "The bottom line here is that the war on terrorism is not just about Al Qaeda. It is a series of terrorist groups that are basically confronting us and it is the kinds of changes that we see in their methods of approaching the United States that I think represents the very important threat that we have to pay attention to."
United States President Barack Obama will visit India this summer, making him the first US President to visit India in the first two years of his first term in more than 30 years, senior administration officials and diplomatic sources.According to the sources, more details regarding the finalisation of dates will be discussed when Dr Singh arrives in Washington, DC on April 12 on a two-day visit, on the invitation of Obama, to attend the Global Nuclear Security Summit.
The largest-ever study on caste-based discrimination and segregation against Dalits has found that untouchability is still practiced widely across Gujarat, despite the practice being abolished by the Constitution, according to the Robert K Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights based in Washington, DC.The report said it addressed almost all known untouchability practices, including the segregation of housing, drinking-water wells, places of religious worship.
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