The strengthening ties between India and United States have made Pakistan paranoid. Fearing that US might just discard it, Pakistan is now turning to its "enduring friend" China, believe America's powerful couple in diplomatic circles -- former ambassadors Howard and Teresita Schaffer. Aziz Haniffa reports
'A good ambassador needs to know, and to represent, the interests of the United States. In South Asia, career officers have done well by this standard; so have most of the non-career appointees.' Career diplomat Nancy J Powell, the US ambassador to India, resigned on Monday. Retired United States ambassadors Howard B Schaffer and Teresita C Schaffer look at how political appointees and career diplomats sent as envoys to India and South Asia have fared over the years.
United States President Barack Obama not just met, but beat India's expectations, feel two veteran career diplomats who between the two of them have over four decades of service in the Indian subcontinent, reports Aziz Haniffa.
Former veteran diplomat Teresita Schaffer has blamed the failure of successive Indian governments to address the plethora of grievances of the people of Kashmir for the resurrection of violence in the state.
Attempting to parse the symbolism and the substance of the summit between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a wasteful exercise, says former diplomat Teresita C Schaffer, currently Director of the South Asia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. 'Substance' takes time to achieve, and much of it is built on the bedrock of such 'symbolic' high level meetings, she argued.
'The unresolved problems with Pakistan are a bit of a drag on its other international ambitions,' Teresita C Schaffer, director of the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC, think-tank and former US diplomat, tells Aziz Haniffa.
The new administration in the United States means more continuity than change in Indo-US relations, says Teresita C Schaffer, director of South Asia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The author of a definitive guide to the Kashmir crisis speaks with Managing Editor Aziz Haniffa.
"US officials expect India to play a major role in shaping Asia's strategic environment," the authors have said adding, that Washington would like New Delhi to be involved in a number of major issues.
"This means we need the Pakistani political system -- or as many parts of it as possible -- to buy into the goal of eliminating extremist influence in Pakistan."
Schaffer said that the recent Supreme Court ruling reinstating the Chief Justice who was fired by Musharraf "...was a serious embarrassment to Musharraf" and also interfered with his "...strategy of seeking re-election later this year."
Retired senior US diplomats Teresita and Howard Schaffer believe the 'US cannot afford to continue restricting its contacts with Narendra Modi.' Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
To mark Prime Minister Modi's seventh meeting with Obama and his historic joint address to US Congress -- the sixth Indian PM to do so -- India Abroad, the newspaper published from New York and owned by rediff.com, reached out to diplomats and strategic thinkers in New Delhi and Washington, DC, to assess the current state of the US-India relationship and suggest a road map for the future.
United States President Barack Obama's proposed visit to India in January next year is a great opportunity to strengthen and expand bilateral strategic partnership, top American administration officials and experts have said.
The diplomatic row between the United States and India over the arrest of an Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was mishandled by both countries and it is high time to move forward and find a diplomatic resolution, two former American diplomats have said.
Two former senior United States diplomats, with more than 60 years experience in South Asia between them, have exhorted Washington to establish communication with Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sooner than later.
'In the time I have been an Indiawallah, I have seen three US Presidential visits to India, nuclear sanctions, nuclear cooperation, a border conflict with Pakistan, the growth of IT services, a government losing a confidence vote, and so much more,' Rick Rossow, the new Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies tells Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Friends and colleagues pay rich tributes to the "charming, approachable, and very accessible" Indian Constitution scholar Granville 'Red' Austin.
Describing the Narendra Modi-led BJP's electoral victory as a "breathtaking landslide", eminent American think tanks and experts have said the win has given him an opportunity to "redefine" Indian politics.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
