In a glittering ceremony, former president Bill Clinton Thursday evening presented six individuals, including New Delhi-based Ruchira Gupta -- journalist, activist and policymaker, who for the past 25 years has worked relentlessly for women's and girl's rights, especially the ending of their sex trafficking -- with the 2009 Clinton Global Citizen Awards.
Ruchira Gupta, journalist, activist and policymaker, has for the past 25 years worked relentlessly for women's and girl's rights -- especially the ending of their sex trafficking
Shrugging aside the recent reports of Pakistan illegally modifying the United States-supplied harpoon missiles to target India and former President Pervez Musharraf's revelations that he diverted the massive American military aid provided to Pakistan to fight the war on terror to the eastern border to bolster his country's defenses for a potential convention conflict with India, the US Senate passed a massive $7.5 billion economic and military largesse to Pakistan.
Dr Siddiqui is currently the vice president, Science and Regulatory Affairs at the Washington, DC-based CropLife America, where he is responsible for regulatory and international trade issues related to crop protection chemicals.
"If 5,000 of these folk (some have estimated the strength of the LeT upwards of 150,000) decide to come out tomorrow in defense, there would be no police -- nowhere in sight. They could take over the city."
He asserted, "If America wants Pakistan to cooperate and find solutions within Pakistan on terrorism, on domestic violence, on the economy, then we need peace on our borders. We can't have peace on our borders if the first thought that comes to India is, if there is another Mumbai."
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao met her US counterpart William Burns and discussed a wide range of bilateral issues, including counter-terrorism and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's proposed visit to America in November.
The senior administration officials present at the swearing in included US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F Kennedy, Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Pradeep Ramamurthy, Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council.
Though the Indian caucus in the Obama administration is concerned over the recent reports concerning Pakistan's funds being used against India, it may be unable to bring any changes in the Kerry-Lugar bill that has assured Pakistan of USD 1.5 billion on an annual basis for five years.
Amidst growing concern that India and the United States are on a collision course over reduction of carbon emissions in the run-up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year, India's Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar said that for a country like India with a severe energy shortage, absolute reductions of emissions is extremely challenging and well nigh impossible.
Indian Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar has said it is not India but the US that has to respond to the recent revelations by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf that American military aid provided to Pakistan for its war against terror during his tenure, had been diverted to strengthen its defenses against India.
There is no denying that Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram's three-day trip to the United States will advance the further institutionalisation of India-US counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing cooperation.
Chidambaram, who spent the first day of his four-day visit to the US in New York, being briefed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department's intelligence and security units, said at a press briefing at the Indian embassy that New York was a priority 'in my list because I was keen to know how the NYPD worked in securing a mega city'.
For Home Minister Chidambaram, it was an opportunity to set the record straight and disabuse any misperception that the Home Ministry affidavit on Ishrat Jahan and three others could be used by the Gujarat government to vindicate itself from culpability in the alleged fake encounter case.
Congressman Joe Wilson, a conservative Republican from South Carolina, the erstwhile GOP co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, angrily shouted "You lie," stunning his fellow lawmakers, including his own Republican colleagues, and interrupting President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on his proposed health care reform.
The US government has expressed its dissatisfaction over the progress made by Sri Lanka in rehabilitating the war-hit Tamils living in detainee camps and in reconciliating with political parties of Tamils and Muslims in the country.
The decision by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to place India on its 'Watch List,' for what it said was "the government's largely inadequate response to protecting religious minorities," will not impact in any way on the growing US-India strategic partnership, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake has said.
Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake was asked pointedly by rediff.com to respond to a growing perception that Pakistan was hedging on punishing the terrorists behind the Mumbai terror attack and the US was backing off from applying too much pressure on Islamabad because of its strategic interests. Blake said, "First of all, let me say these are really a very complicated set of issues that are for India and Pakistan to resolve."
"The new sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, is perhaps the most politically inclined head of the RSS since its founder Keshav Baliran Hedgewar some eight decades ago," says American expert Dr Walter Andersen.
"Of course, from a more general perspective, the Indian weapon programme has produced sufficiently good weapons -- they did go 'bang' at Pokhran II -- to provide a nuclear deterrent that only insane fools or idiots would ignore."
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