The Indian government's identification of two 'greenfield' sites for commercial nuclear development, that will utilise US technology has been welcomed by the US-India Business Council (USIBC).
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is a terrorist organisation, even if it has not been officially designated yet, a top United States official has told his lawmakers. The US now says that the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the failed Times Square bomb attempt on May 1, in which a Pakistani-American, Faisal Shahzad, 30, has been arrested by federal authorities.
The irritants that have cropped up in recent weeks in relations between India and the United States figured in the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the sidelines of the 65th United Nations General Assembly sessions in New York. But a senior US official said the 'superb cooperation and goodwill' between Washington and New Delhi would eclipse these hiccups and would not be a dampener on President Obama's visit.
The manner in which India and Pakistan have pursued atomic weapons has 'upset the balance of nuclear deterrence', United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday, asserting that the US is working hard with both countries to try to limit their number of nuclear stockpiles.
As Washington tries to find its way out of Afghanistan, Pakistan has emerged as the central player dictating the terms of this emerging endgame in South Asia, notes Harsh Pant.
The United States has made it clear that its first strategic dialogue with Pakistan next week is not being held at India's expense, even as it said it is 'pleased' that Pakistan army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is part of Islamabad's delegation as there can be no such talks without the military participation.
"How can you have a strategic dialogue without including the military," Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.
Neera Tanden, one of the senior-most Indian Americans in the Obama administration, has quit the administration to rejoin her former liberal and progressive think tank in Washington, DC. She was a key adviser on health-care reform policy and worked with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday said neither Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden nor Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar were present in Pakistan, a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton' assertion that the Laden is still in the country.
With United States' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by his side, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday raked up the Kashmir issue and said his country wants a sustained dialogue with India.
An Iranian nuclear scientist who had sought refuge in the Pakistani embassy compound in Washington after an apparent defection gone wrong is on his way home and has threatened to reveal full details of his 'abduction' by the Central Intelligence Agency."My abduction is a detailed story and I will reveal the details once I am back in my beloved homeland," Shahram Amiri, 35, was quoted as saying.
The senior administration officials present at the swearing in included US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F Kennedy, Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Pradeep Ramamurthy, Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council.
Terming it as an important meeting, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy, Lodi Gyari, said the Tibetan leader would speak about Tibet, and as two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, he and the President are likely to discuss global concerns.
The Taliban has denied as 'baseless rumours' reports that its top leaders had met United Nation's representatives to discuss bringing peace to Afghanistan and vowed to persist in its war 'against the invaders'. The denial came in response to news reports that Kai Eide, the outgoing UN envoy, held a meeting in Dubai in February with members of the Taliban leadership. The United Nations has not confirmed that such a meeting took place.
The United States has said enhancing economic ties with India will create thousands of jobs for Americans, as against the general impression about the US jobs being outsourced to the South Asian country.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday held a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the sidelines of a meeting of CEOs from India and the US.
The Pakistan government is reported to have raised the issue of its agrarian lands drying up due to India's water conspiracy with visiting United States Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.
Despite managing to get $2.29 billion in fresh military aid, Pakistan failed to extract anything from the US on two key issues of civilian nuclear deal similar to that of India and American intervention in resolving the Kashmir issue.
The 39-year-old Indian-American was sworn in on Friday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the chief of USAID, which oversees disbursal of $40 billion US foreign aid programme.
Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "India's rhetoric was as strident as we ever heard China's, so we need to build a climate partnership with India, too; working from the same principles, but respecting the massive differences."
The apparent consensus among South Asia watchers and experts in United States is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's three-day visit to Mumbai and New Delhi was a slam dunk in effectively quashing the contention of naysayers, both in India and the US, that the Barack Obama administration was less committed to the India-US strategic partnership than its predecessor George W Bush administration.
India and the United States on Monday agreed to move ahead towards a non-discriminatory, internationally and effectively verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and pledged to cooperate to prevent nuclear terrorism.
Leader of opposition and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani raised the issue of the joint statement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Gilani, during his five minute meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at his residence on Monday.
Pakistan has welcomed United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks that New Delhi and Islamabad should settle the Kashmir problem bilaterally, and said it looked forward to resumption of the composite dialogue between the two countries to discuss the issue. "The two countries have agreed to discuss this issue bilaterally by agreeing to the composite dialogue framework. And Kashmir dispute is a part of that framework," said Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.
The United States on Sunday committed to help India raise farm productivity and eliminate hunger. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, where the US is helping India to develop seeds that give better productivity and crops that use less water.
As IMF meets to give Pakistan another loan, the country's economy remains in deep trouble.
As Pakistan battled growing Taliban insurgency, the US has said the country is at a "critical juncture", but acknowledged that the "trust deficit" between the two sides is holding back their cooperation.
Wisely skirting a prospective foreign policy pitfall, US President Barack Obama appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, shelving the controversial idea of appointing an envoy for South Asia.
United States First Lady Melania Trump decided not to wear a headscarf while accompanying her husband President Donald Trump on his first state visit to Saudi Arabia.
The US on Wednesday launched a Global Entrepreneurship programme and several other ambitious projects in an effort to bridge the gap with the Muslim world and take its engagement with the community across the globe to a new level of mutual trust and friendship.
Trump has long accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive globally.
An interview with former US assistant secretary of commerce Raymond E Vickery speaks on his book The Eagle And The Elephant: Strategic Aspects Of Us-India Economic Engagement.
"We are ready for an intense and wide-ranging cooperative engagement in all areas of human endeavour," Dr Singh said in his address at the luncheon hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.
Influential United States Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the new Democratic co-chair of the reconstituted US Senate India Caucus, who took over from the erstwhile Senator and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in welcoming Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Washington, has said, "That President Obama chose the visit of Indian Prime Minister Singh as the occasion for the first State Dinner of his administration should come as no surprise."
A key aide to United States President Barack Obama has dismissed reports that the new US administration has kept the nuclear deal with India on the backburner. Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency official who co-chaired an inter-agency committee which formulated Obama's Af-Pak policy, also did not see Robert Einhorn's recent appointment, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's special adviser on non-proliferation issues, as an impediment.
Stating that Pakistan was at a 'critical point' of history, the United States on Wednesday offered to stand soldier-to-soldier with the country in its fight against 'tenacious and brutal terror groups'. "This is not Pakistan's fight alone," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced hours after a car bomb in Peshawar killed at least 95 people and injured over 200. "Pakistan is in the midst of a struggle against tenacious and brutal terror groups," she said.
In one of the deadliest terror attacks in Pakistan, at least 95 people were killed and over 200 injured on Wednesday when a powerful car bomb ripped through a packed market in Peshawar, hours after the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan on her maiden official visit.
Pakistan has failed to secure a clear commitment for its much sought-after civil nuclear deal from the United States, which has decided to help in upgrading three of its thermal power plants.
A group of 57 lawmakers have appealed to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call to call an independent international probe into alleged war crimes during Sri Lanka's 25 years of civil war.
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