Taking part in an interaction following his speech to a conference of US-India Relations, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert Blake announced that US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will make her first trip to New Delhi in the spring for meetings with her counterpart Home Minister P Chidambaram and other senior officials in the Ministry and intelligence agencies.
The delegation visiting India during September 5-8 will be led by assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs Donald Lu.
An expert on South Asian affairs has said that the US can pursue, support and encourage Pakistan in its transition from tolerating to fighting the various militant groups on its territory, with the help of four policies.
Karl 'Rick' Inderfurth, foreign policy advisor on South Asia for United States President-elect Barack Obama's campaign, who is expected to play an influential role in the Obama administration's policy on the subcontinent, says, "It was said immediately after the 9/11 attack that 'we are all Americans'. Now, in the wake of the Mumbai tragedy, it is right for all of us to say 'we are all Indians.'
The United States on Friday asked Sri Lanka to speed up its probe into allegations of rights abuses during the civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, resume talks with Tamil parties on power sharing and reduce the role of the military in the former conflict zone.
Karl F Inderfurth, who was Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs in the Clinton administration, and Nicholas Burns, who was Under Secretary of State in the Bush Administration, told rediff.com that Obama's endorsement during his address to a joint session of Parliament thus made his visit to India transformational too in a sense as had the trip by Clinton in March of 2000 and Bush in March 2006.
Confirming rediff.com's scoop of October 15 on how United States officials wanted US President Barack Obama to endorse India's bid for permanent membership in the United States Security Council, advising him it could make his India visit truly historic, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert Blake said Monday, that even though the President's announcement of support for India's candidacy during his address to Parliament came as a surprise to many people,
Pakistan's deteriorating security situation, its connection with Islamist militancy, and the implications for the United States and India relations came under focus during a lecture by American Foreign Policy Council Fellow Jeff M Smith, at the Indian consulate in New York recently.
The India Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- a leading Washington, DC think tank -- will be occupied by Karl F Inderfurth, erstwhile Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs in the Clinton Administration.
Karl F Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in former United States President Bill Clinton's administration and a foreign policy adviser in the Barack Obama presidential campaign, says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India was 'continuity plus', vis--vis the growing strategic partnership between Washington and New Delhi.Inderfurth said, "This visit was filled with areas to promote even closer cooperation."
Congressman Joseph Crowley, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives and the former chair of the Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has condemned the terror attack on Mumbai.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has indicated that the Congress party is in alignment with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on major foreign policy issues like the relationship with the United States, no talks with Pakistan unless the flow of terrorism is stopped, concerns over extremist elements in Bangladesh and Israel.
"I believe it would a great thing if the president were to do this during his visit," Karl Inderfurth, professor of international relations at George Washington University, told Rediff India Abroad
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has alleged that it is not Pakistan that is carrying out a proxy war against India in Afghanistan, but the other way around, with the Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad, veritable offices of the Indian intelligence, the Research and Analysis Wing, to foment terrorism in Pakistan.
Veteran diplomat and author Phillips Talbot, a Padma Shri recipient who experienced first-hand the power of Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement and was one of the few Americans present during India's partition, has died in New York at the age of 95.Talbot's death on October 1 was announced by the Asia Society, where he served as the president between 1970 and 1981.He was United State's assistant secretary of state for near eastern and south Asian affairs.
'How could we have gone from a position of strength in the international community to virtual isolation,' asks Karl F Inderfurth, former US assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs.
Tata Sons will likely choose Singapore as a "key partner" for its semiconductor plans, a senior minister from the city-state said on Friday. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran earlier in the day, Singapore's minister for home affairs and law K Shanmugam said semiconductors was a "big discussion" point during the meeting. "If they (Tatas) want to, they can do business with anybody in the world.
When Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs was challenged as to what action against terror groups, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the US had been able to elicit from Pakistan and that President Obama's statements that Pakistan providing safe havens to these groups being unacceptable was said in India to pacify Indians, he defended the actions taken by Islamabad thus far.
Pakistan says it will go with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline despite skepticism over the project from the United States.
In what could be yet another historic appointment in the annals of the Indian-American community's immigrant experience, senior administration sources have told rediff.com that Nisha Desai Biswal is strongly tipped to be appointed the new assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs
US eager to combat terror in Bangladesh
The US and India are in sync with their foreign policy toward Sri Lanka, particularly over the repatriation of the remaining 40,000 plus internally displaced persons after the government's victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Tamil-populated northern province, said Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert O Blake.
Garcetti reportedly said the violence and killings in Manipur are a matter of "human concern" and the US is "ready to assist" India in dealing with the situation "if asked".
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert Blake said Pakistan had frequently raised the controversial and contentious water issue with India during his recent trip to Islamabad, but added that the US had no intention of intervening in the bilateral issue.
Atul Keshap would be 'a superb fit for Sri Lanka as he knows the ins and outs of the politics there and all the political players, including the new disposition in Colombo intimately,' US diplomatic sources in Washington, DC told Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
He cited the US-backed regime changes or "colour revolutions" in former Soviet Republics like Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan as events that could have an impact on China's security calculations.
Over 90 Indian-American community leaders and political activists, who were catalytic in pushing through the passage of the legislation, took part in the ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
Sheikh Hasina was on Thursday sworn in as the prime minister of Bangladesh for the fifth term, days after her Awami League won an overwhelming majority in the general elections boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies.
'It certainly doesn't have to be accomplished at the end of the year. It will not turn into a pumpkin after some days! The next president and next Congress can take this up,' says expert K Alan Kronstadt.
The US has, however, not categorically offered to help with Dawood's extradition.
Times have changed, situations have changed, but the basic nature of superpower geo-politics remains the same and so also India's diplomacy -- call it non-alignment, strategic autonomy or neutrality; it all depends on the time scale, notes Rup Narayan Das.
The Jaishankar-Wang talks came amid the dragging border row in eastern Ladakh that entered its fifth year in May.
Dulat, however, pointedly said engagement with Pakistan has always been "influenced by domestic politics".
It said that the opportunities presented by an open and competitive South Asian market may also be grasped and consolidated from both security and economic perspectives.
'Tensions and dialogue are likely to go hand-in-hand with China.' 'The goal should be to cultivate power so that one can negotiate from a position of strength.'
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