"Japan will participate in MALABAR this year which is our largest bilateral naval exercise with India and it's scheduled to take place at the end of this month," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Amy Searight told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on Thursday.
US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, newly elected co-chair of the influential Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, discusses her vision for US-India ties with Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Only he, with his tremendous political capital and personal stature, can pull it off, observes B S Raghavan, the veteran civil servant.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay offers some unsolicited advice for a government wh,ich came to power, with brute majority and the nation's pragmatic chief money man.
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.
'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.<
The Trump regime has informed the Congress that it 'strongly supports' transfers of F-18 and F-16 fighter proposals put forth by Boeing and Lockheed Martin respectively.
'Pakistan has to take responsibility and start cracking down on terrorists.'
'There was no need for opting for such an elaborately and expensively organised spectacle,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'China was a relationship from which Mr Modi had expected the most it seems.' 'It showed in a string of summits, and somewhat breathless celebration of Xi Jinping.' 'It was hasty and simplistic,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
International cooperation to cut off their funding, expanded intelligence sharing, and cyber warfare to disrupt and disable their propaganda and recruiting is his plan to stop the terror group.
While political observers are unable to make head or tail of the US President, those moving in high business and industry circles tell B S Raghavan that Trump's style is exactly that of an aggressive and successful businessman.
'The past year has yielded extraordinary results in the strategic, commercial, and people-to-people components of the India-United States partnership, US Ambassador to India Richard Rahul Verma tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
52 world leaders, including Narendra Modi, will attend this week's Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. Obama will meet separately only with the Chinese president.
US President Barack Obama said there is natural convergence between India and the United States.
'It is vital we should form an international coalition against ISIS, because their brutality and the use of the Internet for jihadist activities is a reminder that the entire world community has to be in this together,' US Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview ahead of Prime Minister Modi's visit.
'India is no longer the India of the '70s and the '80s.' 'It's a large country with the fastest growing economy.' 'In working with India, you just can't go and humiliate the nation publicly.' USIBC President Mukesh Aghi tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com about how he advises American companies to do business with India, what he thinks of Modi's government and the way forward for the India-US relationship.
'When the United States and India make common cause there's really no challenge that we can't tackle, there's no mission that we can't overcome,' believes senior US official Nisha Desai Biswal
The letter, to maintain the current policy of denying Narendra Modi a visa to the United States, was released just as the BJP president arrived in Washington DC for a round of meetings with US lawmakers. Aziz Haniffa reports
The administration and America Inc have invested in Narendra Modi's power to transform India. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
'We have a common way of looking at the world, a common way of thinking, and a common set of values that predispose us to be partners. And our interests overlap greatly,' Dr Ashton B Carter, America's next defence secretary, told Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
