Sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) told Business Standard that National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon will meet top leaders of the BJP and the CPI(M) to explain the salient features of the Bill.
President Obama was seen patting Saran's back after the Copenhagen negotiations, but he characteristically laughed it away when I mentioned it in my TV conversation with him. Saran will be missed in the government, but he will be a welcome addition to the strategic community, which will benefit from his immense experience and innate wisdom
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.
On the eve of the first high-level talks between India and the new Obama Administration in Washington, with the arrival of Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior US officials later today (Monday), outgoing Ambassador Ronen Sen has dismissed concerns over the momentum of the relationship under the new dispensation in DC.
Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon will arrive in Washington on Sunday and will be holding meetings with top Obama Administration officials on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues. Taking the Indo-US relationship to the next level - from what was accomplished during the Bush Administration - is going to be the main focus of this first high-level Indo-US interaction after Barack Obama was sworn in as the USPresident on January 20.
There was much demand for the visa centre in Wales to ensure speedier processing of applications. Earlier, applicants seeking visas here would need to travel to the Indian consulate in Birmingham or the High Commission in London. The centre has been set up following representations made to Mukherjee during his visit to Cardiff last year.
"There are individual areas where we think there are activities and infrastructure development. We have ways of dealing with this and it has always been successful," Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told media persons during a briefing on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's maiden visit to Beijing beginning Sunday.
Prolific and passionate, Omji's cinema is far more valuable than we think.
Actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi met Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswamy in New Delhi on Monday to seek a common symbol for his party Praja Rajyam. Chiranjeevi, who was accompanied by former union minister P Shivshankar, submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission, requesting that the rules for issuing a common symbol be amended. As per the EC's rules, a regional political party needs to secure six per cent of the votes and two elected representatives.
Speaking to media persons aboard Air India 001, conveying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Moscow, Menon said, "This is one relationship without any wrinkles or difficulties." The foreign secretary was reacting to an inquiry whether Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's refusal to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the latter's visit to Moscow last month.
India is confident of weathering the current global financial crisis and is on track to become the world's third largest economy by 2035 as predicted by experts, India's High Commissioner to the UK Shiv Shankar Mukherjee has said.
Indian high commissioner Shiv Shankar Mukherjee has asked the British companies, based in Birmingham and other towns in the West Midlands, to expand and avail of opportunities offered by India.
India on Friday said it was confident of the passage of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal as it enjoyed bipartisan support among lawmakers, assuring that American firms would not be put at a disadvantage even if there is delay in getting a Congressional nod for the accord.
India on Friday described as "constructive and useful" the two-day meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in the run-up to securing a clean exemption for conducting international nuclear commerce.
The 58-year-old diplomat, who was ambassador to China before her new assignment, will have tenure of 17 months as the top foreign ministry official. Prior to her stint in China, she has served in various key positions, including India's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and was the first woman spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry.
Was that an invitation or a signal that the process of regular interactions between foreign secretaries, home secretaries, director generals of military intelligence will be back on track is anybody's guess.
Accusing "elements" in Pakistan for the suicide attack on Indian mission in Kabul, India Monday made it clear that the recent spate of terror attacks and ceasefire violations triggered from across the border have put the peace process "under stress". In some tough-talking, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir that these concerns of New Delhi must be addressed.
"The two delegations engaged in productive discussions on working together to address global challenges. They examined new and expanded areas for India-US cooperation," sources said.
Menon will on Tuesday hold discussions with the US Under Secretary Nicholas Burns amid 'frustration' in the US at the slow pace of negotiations and India's insistence on right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
"Bilateral talks usually focus on a broad range of issues: from the crucial international problems, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and response to international terrorism, to the coordination of the working issues of bilateral cooperation."
Menon said he would not like to jump to any conclusion as to which terrorist group was behind the Jaipur bomb blasts. Asked if the government of India was taken by surprise by the series of bomb blasts that shook Jaipur on Tuesday night particularly when it came after firing from across the border from the Pakistani Rangers and the killing of innocent persons in Samba sector in Jammu resign, the foreign secretary said that peace and security would be high on the agenda.
"We want to take relations forward," Menon said in his opening remarks.
Describing country's publishing industry as vibrant, the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Shiv Shankar Mukherjee said it is growing at an impressive rate of 30 per cent every year.
India would like to see a consensus that builds on essentially the ideas that the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi put forward of a nuclear weapon free world --moving towards it in pre-determined, verifiable time frame.
The draft 123 Agreement will be given to the American side by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Tuesday when he visits Washington for the High Technology Cooperation Group meeting.
The Nation quoted Kasuri as saying in Islamabad that Pakistan welcomed the statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make Siachen 'a mountain of peace'.
Even as the proposed H-1B visa curbs and possible elimination of this programme by the United States Congress is on the cards, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said in Washington on Wednesday that there's absolutely nothing India can do about it because it's a sovereign prerogative of the US.
Previously, for nearly a decade, we had no body for analysis, assessment and follow-up action. Today we have three --- the JIC of the old vintage, the NSCS of the 1998-99 creation and the National Security Advisory Board, which came into existence in 1999 as a body of non-governmental analysts and advisers on national security. From a state of practically no analysis, we have gravitated to one of a plethora of analysis.
Menon's visit follows serious concern expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over renewed violence in the island's embattled regions.
An image of the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries in New Delhi.
India and Pakistan are expected to tale up issues like terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir besides confidence building measures.
In diplomacy, it is inadvisable to be a straggler, as you may end up crawling back on a pitiless greasy pole.
Backing Iran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, India has said that "no country can put pressure" on Tehran in that respect as it sought establishment of strategic partnership with the oil-rich Persian country.
'Bush can climb over a tower and scream that Syed Salahuddin is a terrorist. But nobody would listen to him,' says the Hizbul Mujahideen leader.
Pledging UK's support to India in its fight against terrorism in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, a motion moved in the House of Commons said that Britain would ensure its territory is not used as a base for supporting this kind of terrorist attacks.
According to a source in government, "We have three pieces of evidence right now of the involvement of people based in Pakistan. One is the satellite phone through which calls were made to Pakistan from Mumbai. Two, the interrogation statement of the captured terrorist has lots of details which will help demolish Pakistan's claims that there are no terrorist camps inside Pakistan. Three, the dead bodies of nine terrorists and the proof of identity found on them."
Bharat Keshar Singh, Honorary aide-de-camp to the King, has accused Shiv Shankar Mukherjee of conspiring against King Gyanendra.
