Pakistan on Saturday brought in a Constitutional amendment to create a new post of chief of defence forces to ensure greater coordination and unified command among the three services.
The unanimous vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee on the amendment moved by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is reflective of the changing mode in the US and growing frustration among US lawmakers on Pakistan.
We have nothing to gain by raising our concerns internationally as our narrative has got entangled with several controversial concepts in the United Nations, asserts Ambassador T N Sreenivasan.
The move has left the Democrats fuming, asserting that the Pentagon didn't seek permission.
A key United States Senate sub-committee has approved $1 billion aid to Pakistan for the fiscal year 2013. The $52.1 billion Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Bill for the year 2103 was passed by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, during its meeting on Tuesday.
The House of Representatives needs to pass similar bill to avoid a government shutdown this weekend. House, in which the Republicans currently has a majority, is expected to pass the bill, but unlikely to include funding for the border wall.
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.
Pakistan on Thursday said Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's remarks that "terrorists have to be neutralised only through terrorists" should be a matter of concern for the region and beyond and warned of taking "appropriate measures" to safeguard its interests.
The Syria war resolution drafted by members of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee permits up to 60 days of military action against the Bashar al-Assad regime and does not permit any boots on the ground, Congressional aides said.
The US Senate has confirmed Indian-American woman administrator Nisha Desai Biswal as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, making her the first person from the community to hold the top diplomatic position.
The bill now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump's approval.
'Today, our hearts are with India. Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones during the bridge collapse and join the people of Gujarat in mourning the loss of too many lives cut short,' Biden said.
Tanden, president of the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress, would have led a key economic post that oversees the production of the President's proposed budget for his agenda if she had been confirmed.
A US federal judge in Houston has declared illegal a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of Indians, brought to the US as children, but noted that the government can continue to process renewals of its current recipients.
The White House and the Indian-American community are solidly backing the nomination of Neera Tanden as the director of Office of Management and Budget, describing her as the most appropriate candidate to hold the position.
Two powerful US Senators have urged President Joe Biden not to impose provisions of the punitive Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act against India for buying the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.
A United States fighter jet Friday shot down an object, the size of a small car, flying with payloads at a height of about 40,000 feet off the northern coast of Alaska on the direction of President Joe Biden, officials said.
Kavanaugh's nomination plunged into chaos after Christine Blasey Ford on Sunday told 'The Washington Post' that she was subjected to a sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee in high school in the early 1980s.
Amid mass layoffs in the tech sector, the federal agency for immigration services has said it is wrong to assume that sacked workers holding the much-sought-after H-1B visas have to leave the country within 60 days, asserting they have multiple options to stay in the US. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
These self-appointed well-wishers of AMU are basically for the control or police model of university governance. They have no faith whatsoever in the democratic functioning of the universities, observes Faizan Mustafa, former dean, Faculty of Law, and Registrar, Aligarh Muslim University.
Trump said that Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach was "occupied by a large group of FBI agents".
The 'terrible' surge of the coronavirus cases in India has severely impacted COVAX's vaccine supply in the second quarter of this year to the extent that there will be a shortfall of 190 million doses by the end of June, according to a joint statement by the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and CEPI.
Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Fauci said that India made the "incorrect assumption" that they were finished with COVID-19.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on US-Pakistan relations and had a lively debate on the issue whose transcript was released on Sunday.
Siegfried Hecker, the co-director for the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, told a Senate Sub Committee on Appropriations dealing with Energy, "India does not view itself as a proliferator but as a legitimate nuclear weapons state." "Indians are actually significantly more capable in nuclear energy technology -- and I believe it will be in our benefit to have nuclear cooperation for nuclear energy with India," Hecker told the Senate.
Trump and the White House has described this as an impeachment hoax. White House asserted that the president has done no wrong.
A top United States senator has unveiled an 18-point plan, including enhancing military ties with India, to hold the Chinese government accountable for its "lies, deception, and cover-ups" that ultimately led to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
"We pay for a majority or the biggest portion of their money. They actually criticised and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. They were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early and they didn't want to -- they're very -- they seem to be very China centric," the US president charged during his news conference.
Lobbying on the Hill is time consuming and cumbersome, but very effective to influence US government policies, asserts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy in Washington, DC after the 1998 nuclear tests and during the Kargil War.
Trump indicated that his administration is looking at a bigger compensation from Beijing than the $140 billion being sought by Germany over the coronavirus pandemic.
"I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the US," Sessions said in a statement.
Comey states that Trump asked him on several occasions to publicly state that he was not under investigation.
The Trump Administration plunged into another crisis on Thursday after reports surfaced that United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice with Russian envoy to Washington during the presidential elections last year.
The United States has been successful in engaging with India on tracking money used by radical groups to penetrate into the country, the Barack Obama administration has said as it praised Indian Muslims for demonstrating a great deal of "resilience" against overtures by terrorist groups.
Trump said a thorough investigation will prove that no such collusion took place.
Whatever be Kamala Harris's preference for her identity, many Indians in the US will rally around her as she is the first person with Indian blood in her veins to get close to the White House, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Given Congressional objections, we have told the Pakistanis that they should put forward national funds for that purpose," US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
The US House of Representatives averted a government shutdown on Thursday, narrowly passing a $1.1 trillion spending bill despite strenuous Democratic objections to controversial financial provisions.
Pentagon has sought direct dialogue between India and China 'free of any coercive aspects'.
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