As US President Barack Obama took ownership of a new comprehensive strategy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan to counter the Al Qaeda and a resurgent Taliban, senior Administration officials acknowledged that India would be a key stakeholder in these efforts too, although New Delhi will not be invited to put boots on the ground in this renewed fight against terrorism because of its regional problems with Pakistan.
Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, who was the original Indian interlocutor of the US-India civilian nuclear deal negotiations with erstwhile US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, is unapologetic about his recent remarks at the India Habitat Centre lecture series in New Delhi which left many foreign policy experts both in India and the US puzzled.
Curtis, who was the lead panellist at a conference at The Brookings Institution titled, The US-India Nuclear Agreement: Expectations and Consequences,' said, "During the Bush Administration, US officials broke the habit of viewing India solely through the India-Pakistan lens. Washington developed a greater appreciation for the Indian democratic miracle and viewed our shared democratic principles as the bedrock for a broader strategic partnership."
T P Sreenivasan, India's former Governor to the International Atomic Energy Agency and ex-Indian Ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, has predicted that the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal will be honoured regardless of whatever dispensation comes to power following the general election in May. Sreenivasan noted that "two of the three coalitions vying for power in India are committed to amend it, though not to abandon it."
He argued that "as India emerges as one of world's leading economic and political power, the central question is how United States and India can work together to address the regional and global challenges that no country alone can solve."
"Therefore, we have given our full support to the consolidation of a multi-party democracy in Afghanistan. We feel that it can and should be a multi-ethnic society, a plural society backed by the United States and India," Saran said.
If peace and stability is to come to South Asia, links between Pakistan's military, Inter-Services Intelligence and the violent extremist jihadi groups the ISI created, must be severed, said Steve Coll, president and CEO of The New America Foundation and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars.
Exactly a week after President Barack Obama formally nominated him as the White House Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, 34, has gone on indefinite leave after his former Office of the Chief Technology Officer of the District of Columbia was raided by the FBI in a sting operation that involved alleged bribery, fraud, and money laundering and resulted in the arrest of two individuals, including an Indian entrepreneur.
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who wrapped up three days of intensive discussions with the hierarchy of the new Obama administration at the State Department, White House, and Pentagon, and also met with the leadership in the US Congress, apparently has every reason to be satisfied that the transformed US-India relationship is ready to be launched to the next level of the partnership.
The Obama administration has shelved the idea of launching a massive military evacuation of nearly 200,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam strongholds, sources have told Rediff India Abroad.
President Barack Obama has nominated Rahul 'Richard' Verma, currently a partner with the top-notch international law firm in Washington,DC -- Steptoe & Johnson LLP -- as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, and sources told Rediff India Abroad that considering that he has been a much respected Congressional staffer, his confirmation process before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the coming weeks would be a shoo-in.
While providing a read-out of the Clinton-Menon meeting Wood was asked if there would be a follow-up meeting between the two countries soon, or if Clinton would be going to India sometime, to which he replied, "At some point, the Secretary will be going to India, but there's isn't any plan at this moment of her travel. But you know, when there is, we'll certainly let you know."
Pelosi told the assembled gathering and many lawmakers who year after year have approved unanimous resolutions condemning the Chinese repression of the Tibetans that "the welcoming of India of the Tibetan refugee community is a testament to the close ties between the Indian and Tibetan people."
The situation in Sri Lanka, where thousands of Tamil civilians are trapped in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's strongholds, permeated the 45-minute discussion on Monday between United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon. This was the first high-level interaction between India and the Obama administration in Washington.
Sen was evidently overcome with emotion by the tributes and accolades paid to him at a farewell reception on Sunday by a coalition of Indian American associations of the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
On the eve of the first high-level talks between India and the new Obama Administration in Washington, with the arrival of Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior US officials later today (Monday), outgoing Ambassador Ronen Sen has dismissed concerns over the momentum of the relationship under the new dispensation in DC.
Outgoing Ambassador Ronen Sen said on Sunday that the biggest legacy of the US-India civilian nuclear deal was not just civil nuclear cooperation that it would entail, but the restoration of trust between the two countries that was terribly eroded after Washington cut off nuclear fuel to India's Tarapur reactor following India first nuclear explosion in 1974.
Ambassador Frank G Wisner, the erstwhile US envoy to India, who for years -- as vice-chairman, external affairs for American International Group -- was the face of this global insurance conglomerate--which is now being bailed out by the US government to the tune of $150 billion -- in India and was largely responsible for pushing for New Delhi's opening up of the insurance sector to foreign investors, has quit AIG and joined the top-notch lobbying firm of Patton Boggs, which w
Outgoing United States Ambassador to India, David Mulford, believes that India can help stimulate the world economy in the wake of the global economic meltdown.Mulford observed that "Developing countries have tended to be recipients during times of difficulty, but this time, some of them may be stimulators and producers. That is an important thought to bear in mind when you are in the condition that the United States is today."
On March 5, President Obama named Kundra the Federal Chief Information Officer at the White House.The Federal CIO directs the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments and is responsible for the supervision of federal technology spending. The Federal CIO establishes and oversees enterprise architecture to ensure system interoperability and information sharing and to ensure information security and privacy across the federal government.
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