As the one-time frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination Hillary Clinton fumbles through the primaries, there are clear indications that the showdown she hoped to have with dark horse Barack Obama at the Denver Convention in August may turn out to be a damp squib.
"We will support nothing with India in the NSG that is in contradiction to the Hyde Act. It will have to be completely consistent with the obligations of the Hyde Act," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Panel.
"Does it make sense to spend hundreds of millions on P-3 naval surveillance aircraft specifically designed to hunt submarines? So far as I know, al-Qaeda has not yet developed a submarine navy," the Delaware Democrat added. "The White House claims that weapons systems like these are indeed counter-terrorism tools, but such a claim is an insult to common sense," said Senator Joseph Biden.
"I think the mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse who could defend his candidate. I think I can promote Hillary but not defend her because I was president," Clinton said. Clinton's comments while campaigning for his wife, including comparing Obama's bid to the unsuccessful campaign of an earlier black presidential hopeful, Jesse Jackson, resulted in a bitter war of words between the two top Democratic contenders.
"Are we reaching a tipping point to witness the decline of this radical behaviour? We don't know the answer to that yet, but we're watching it very closely," National Intelligence Director Admiral Mike McConnell told the House Select Committee on Intelligence. "Brutal attacks unleashed by the al-Qaeda and its affiliates against Muslim civilians have tarnished al-Qaeda's self-styled image as the extremist vanguard," he said.
"It is a very good plane and is very widely used. It is a workhorse and it has been used for 40 years...it can really take off on a much shorter runway and India basically lacks this kind of an airplane," James Clad, the deputy assistant secretary of defence, said. India and the US will soon sign a major arms deal, with the government finally giving the nod for the purchase of the six C-130J aircraft at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore.
The issue of aid for Pakistan, including reimbursements under the Coalition Support Funds, came up during a hearing of the Senate panel on the fiscal 2009 Pentagon budget. There are also reports that they're concerned that a lot of the money that we're giving, that's supposed to be going to Waziristan (tribal region), is just simply being used to build up the military strength of the Pakistan military on the border of India," Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson asked.
"I think the most significant thing in the recent situation is the threat has moved into Pakistan proper to threaten the very existence of the (state). Pakistan has now recognised that this is an existential threat to their very survival," director of US national intelligence Admiral Michael McConnell said.
Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen has said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's prediction to President George W Bush at their first meeting that 'the best was yet to come' in Indo-US relations 'were prophetic', but that even he could not have imagined it to have fostered to the extent it has.
The US intelligence believes that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Kashmir-focused insurgent groups will continue to plan and execute "attacks" in India.
As Americans queued up at polling stations across the nation, leading Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought a see-saw battle while the main Republican frontrunner John McCain sought to bury his rivals at the Super Tuesday primaries, a 24-state showdown.
According to IMF, India is safe from global financial crises as of now. But since it is part of the global economy it is difficult to de-couple it with the rest of the world.
Terming the India-United States civil nuclear agreement as the most outstanding symbol of India's new standing in the world, Indian ambassador to America Ronen Sen has said that civil nuclear cooperation with New Delhi was an issue on which there was complete agreement among Russia, European and other countries.
In her article titled US-Indian Relations: A New Era, Clinton said that one of the most difficult tasks for the new president would be "taking our foreign policy in a new direction and restoring America's leadership in the world." "As president," she declared, "I'll reach out to our allies again and work with them to tackle global problems. America's partnership with India will be among the most important."
"An absolutely clear imperative is that developed countries walk the talk on green house gas reductions. Developing countries are playing a part in the international action on mitigation, especially through the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol," the top Indian delegate said.
For all the jokes that have been going around for decades that when American astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, an Indian was already there, seriously, the hype about an Indian on the moon may be still be a ways off, according to the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization G Madhavan Nair.
India on Thursday said though its understanding with the United States at the political front is good, there is a need to expedite the process of moving forward on the issues of space cooperation and space commerce.
Democrat presidential hopeful John Edwards has bowed out of the race for White House after his dismal performance in most of the primaries dominated by front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Boucher said the Bush administration was satisfied with investigations carried out by Pakistani authorities along with the Scotland Yard.
Police have slapped more charges on a youth accused of killing Indian student Abhijit Mahato, as shocked family members and students held a prayer service for the 29-year-old Duke University alumni.