Until May 14, the USCIS had received 19,000 petitions in the general category and 8,100 in the advanced degree category.
A United States Congressional committee on security will summon the Secret Service chief and the Virginia couple who gate crashed into President Barack Obama's first state dinner, to testify before it on the breach of security at the White House.The House Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing on Thursday, in which they will hear testimonies of aspiring reality TV stars Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who managed to gate-crash into the state dinner.
The leaders were accompanied by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the bilateral meeting.
'Washington senses that the anchor sheet of India's strategic autonomy lies in its longstanding partnership with Russia, which remains firm and immutable despite the changes in world politics in the post-Cold War era,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.<
India's emergence as an economic, political and military power has left the Chinese army worried, even as the two countries in the recent years have increased their economic and military cooperation, states a report released by the Pentagon. "The People's Liberation Army remains concerned with persistent disputes along China's shared border with India and the strategic ramifications of India's rising economic, political, and military power," the Pentagon said.
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."
Jayesh Shah, 73, a retired a medical rehab/pain specialist, has not given up hope for public office. He unsuccessfully ran for Los Angeles County supervisor in 2004 and 2008. He is back in the fray to fight for the Democratic primary June 10 from the 46th Congressional District in California. Nobody else has filed for the Democratic ticket yet.
With work poised to begin on providing unique identification cards to all Indians, the ambitious project has already caught the attention in the US, with lawmakers asking the government why it could not implement a similar project here.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his over four-hour visit to the US Capitol established a personal rapport with top lawmakers and seems to have won over his critics.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday said the unprecedented level of cooperation between the investigative agencies of India and the United States following the Mumbai strikes has strengthened Indo-US ties.
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.
Amid concerns by certain quarters in Pakistan over the "strings" attached to US aid, a key Congressional bill that triples American financial support to Islamabad to USD 7.5 billion (nearly Rs 349 billion) in next five years has been challenged in the Pakistan Supreme Court.
Congressman Gary Ackerman, New York Democrat, and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who last week slammed the Congressional passage of the massive economic and military largesse to Pakistan to the tune of $1.5 billion annually over five years, as the House dutifully fell in line with the Kerry-Lugar bill passed by the Senate last week tripling the aid to Islamabad, has denounced the Pakistani military's hostility to this aid because it contains some cond
United States lawmakers, who attended the annual Sikh American Heritage Dinner on Capitol Hill organized by the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, pledged to support the community's efforts to serve in the armed forces without compromising their religious principles.
A key United States Senator and architect of the Congressional bill, which doles out $ 7.5 billion to Pakistan in the next five years, said that 'no conditions' have been imposed on Islamabad in lieu of the non-military aid.
Influential United States Senator John Kerry who heads the congressional committee responsible for the American foreign policy has said that Pakistan's president, army chief and the Inter-Services Intelligence are showing encouraging signs of transformation and taking the terrorists head on.
Ties between Pakistan's ISI and Taliban remain troubling for the United States and this relationship should be "fixed", a top US senator has said.
Dismissing Islamabad's allegations that India is using its consulates in Afghanistan to recruit anti-Pakistan insurgents and spread its influence in the region, a US report said that New Delhi has played a "constructive role" in the war-torn nation post-Taliban.
The suspension of US aid to Pakistan, which was announced by President Donald Trump in January 2018, remained in effect throughout 2019, the State Department said.
United States President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of State designate Senator Hillary Clinton, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as part of her confirmation process on Tuesday, said that the Obama administration will condition military aid to Pakistan, on its commitment to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism.
'Every single American act to weaken Syrian forces would only tilt the military balance in favour of ISIS whom Trump pledges to vanquish from the face of the earth,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The massive $7.5 billion aid legislation to Pakistan, authored by United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John F Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar, would be approved without any difficulty in the coming weeks. The massive aid to Pakistan will be approved in spite of the serious doubts raised by some members of the committee, including a senior Democrat and a few Republicans, they said.
The three Mi-35 Indian multi-role helicopters donated to Afghanistan have made a big difference in the offensive against militants in the war-torn country, the outgoing commander of US forces in Afghanistan has said.
In 2005, the US had denied visa to Modi in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots, which is still continuing
India on Thursday dismissed allegations made during a US Congressional Commission briefing that "violence" against minorities was taking place after the advent of the Modi government, saying it was based on lack of understanding of India, its Constitution and society.
Pakistani-origin American David Coleman Headley, charged by FBI of being involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, was using US as a base to plan future attacks outside the country, a top Senator said on Thursday. "I understand he was able to use the US as a base of (terror) operations," Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Homeland and Security and Governmental Affairs who has received a classified briefing on the issue, said at a Congressional hearing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to address a joint session of the United States Congress when he travels here to meet US President Barack Obama at the White House in late September mainly because of the general elections in November.
US President Barack Obama faces the same level of threat as that of his two predecessors, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, and not any higher, a senior Secret Service official has said.
As part of efforts to convince Pakistan to abandon its policy of using extremist elements as a strategic tool, the US has warned it that there is "no good terrorist" whom it can count on and asked it to take more steps against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.
"The possibility of catching him alive is infinitesimal. He will be killed by us or he will be killed by his own people so he can't be captured by us," US Attorney General Eric Holder said.
It would be a huge achievement if the new administration manages a successful transition to some sense of domestic and international normalcy in these frantic times marked by the pandemic and rise of illiberal regimes across the world, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
More than a year after Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was signed, a Congressional report has said that several steps, including submission of required certifications by President Barack Obama, remain to be taken by both the countries before American companies can begin nuclear trade with New Delhi.
So far Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide.
Menon said the current global economic crisis figured prominently during his meetings with officials of the Obama administration and congressional leaders in his trip to Washington.
Nearly three months after the US immigration agency started accepting petitions for the H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign professionals, it is still looking for more than 20,000 applications to fill the Congressionally-mandated cap of 65,000.
Congressman Mike Honda of California, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus, believes the ability of the Indian-American community to mobilize is an increasingly potent indication of its clout, and that it can translate into an effective weapon in the coming presidential elections.
Moreover, the deficit represents 9.9 per cent of the national gross domestic product.
Hillary Clinton was publicly sworn in as United States Secretary of State by Vice President Joe Biden at a ceremony held at Foggy Bottom. Hillary's husband and former US President Bill Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were also present at the ceremonial swearing-in ceremony on Monday, which included several former Secretaries of States and Congressional leaders. She is the 67th Secretary of State. Hillary replaces Condoleezza Rice of the previous Bush administration.
India is "very important" for America's foreign policy and crucial for the stability and peace in the region, an influential US lawmaker said on Thursday. "India is a very important part of the United States foreign policy," Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who is co-chair of the Congressional caucus on Pakistan and heads the Afghan caucus said at a panel discussion in Washington.
US Senators Christopher Dodd, Connecticut Democrat and John Cornyn, Texas Republican have launched an attempt to revive the largely comatose US Senate India Caucus.
