The Al Qaeda terrorist havens in Pakistan will be dismantled through "the combination of military operations -- aggressive military operations on the Afghan side -- and working energetically with the Pakistani government to shut down these safe havens."
President Barack Obama's much respected National Security Adviser, Retd James L Jones made clear that while the President's new comprehensive strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan includes encouraging a rapprochement between India and Pakistan, it will absolutely not include any efforts to bring about a resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio.
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.
Reputed author and journalist M J Akbar says that one has to look at the Muslim world through a 'kaleidoscope and not through a telescope' in order to better understand it.
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.
Former batting ace Sunil Gavaskar says India will progress on the sports front if every Olympic discipline is turned into a viable career option. 'If you make every sport in our country a viable career option you will see the difference. I think India will blast through medals,' Gavaskar said, addressing a 400-odd audience at the 13th annual Wharton India Economic forum, in Philadelphia.
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.
A New York-based civil rights organisation on Thursday told the United S Congress how Asian American voters, including Indian Americans, faced hurdles in 11 states and in the District of Columbia during the 2008 presidential elections that prevented them from exercising their franchise
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.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group CEO of Bharti Enterprises and former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, said on Tuesday that it was time for the United States to change its position towards India vis-a-vis Pakistan.
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 half-an-hour clip of the three-hour meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and army officials on March 4, which was banned in the name of national interest, reveals the seething anger among army officials who openly shouted down the newly elected prime minister when she tried to justify her government's decision to negotiate with the mutineers rather than take military action.
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