India, a nascent great power, is an indispensable partner of the United States and a potential counterweight to China, a Congressional report has said ahead of the visit of US President Barack Obama to India. "Long considered a strategic backwater from Washington's perspective, South Asia emerged in the 21st century as increasingly vital to core US foreign policy interests.
Just as polling is underway in south Carolina for state and Congressional elections, Republican candidate for governor Nikki Haley came with her family: husband Michael, children, Rena and Nalin, to the polling station at Mount Horeb Methodist Church, in Lexington. It is also the church that the family goes for worship.
As the United States prepares to sell F-16s to Pakistan, the country's former top diplomat has warned the Congress that such fighter jets would end up being used against India and not against terrorists.
"It is interesting that the US claims to want a democratic Pakistan, but whenever there's a congressional delegation that goes to Pakistan, they don't meet their counterparts in the National Assembly. They all want to meet General Kayani and General Pasha, because they understand that's where the power lies," said Christina Fair of the Georgetown University.
Announcing her nomination among several others, Obama said: "I am grateful that these impressive individuals have agreed to join my administration. I am confident they will serve ably in their new roles, and look forward to working with them in the coming months and years."
Bera now leads Scott Jones by over 2 per cent, increasing the prospect of him being elected for the third time.
The US appeared to be headed for the first government shut down in 15 years, as the White House and the Congress remained at loggerheads on the annual budget for the year 2011, even as President Barack Obama said he is making all efforts to avoid this.
General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command, on Tuesday refuted reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has lost confidence in the American and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces to succeed in Afghanistan.
US Congressman Frank Pallone, the founder and former co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans has slammed the Bhopal court's verdict of just a two year jail term for those responsible for the Bhopal tragedy as "outrageous" and said that erstwhile Union Carbide chief executive Warren Anderson should stand trial in India along with the others culpable for this carnage and receive the maximum punishment for the worst industrial disaster in the world.
A day after the US dragged China to the World Trade Organisation, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is slated to brief two key congressional committees later on Thursday on how the Obama administration plans to make Beijing provide a more-level playing field to American firms.
Indian-American Democrat Reshma Saujani lost New York's Democratic Congressional primary to veteran Carolyn B Maloney after a keenly fought and sometimes vicious contest in which the two candidates took potshots at each other and exchanged a series of verbal punches.
'2020 will show whether India's troubled domestic economic and political house reveals a mismatch in their strategic association or whether closer strategic ties are yet possible,' says Anita Inder Singh.
Indian American doctor Manan Trivedi won a tight race against Doug Pike in the Democratic primary in Pennysylvania's Sixth congressional district. Trivedi will run against Republican Jim Gerlach in November.
United States President Barack Obama blasted the opposition Republican Party and blamed it for the current economic mess being experienced by the country, even as the latest poll reports said that the Republican party is leading against ruling Democrats by 10 points.
Influential US lawmaker Congressman Ed Royce has called for the shutting down of the Deobandi schools (madrassas) in Pakistan, which he alleged "continue to churn out terrorists that attack" democratic nations, including India and the United States.
President Barack Obama dispatched three of his top officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, to the Capital Hill to make a convincing case for a Congressional ratification of the New STRAT treaty with Russia that proposes to reduces the nuclear stockpiles of the nations by one-third.
Soon after Washington's decision to nearly double visa application fees as a part of its border security law, a bigger storm in the form of the Comprehensive Immigration Reforms Bill is gaining momentum in the US.
India is centrally important for America's success in the Af-Pak region, according to Richard Holbrooke, special United States representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. "I want to be sure that everyone here recognises how centrally important India will be to this (the US success in Afghanistan and Pakistan)," he told American lawmakers at a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan convened by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The nine-year American visa ban on Narendra Modi will automatically be lifted and he would enjoy diplomatic immunity if the Bharatiya Janata Party leader becomes the prime minister of India, according to a Congressional report.
United States lawmakers on Wednesday expressed serious concern over Chinese military buildup, which was agreed to by top officials of the Obama administration at a Congressional hearing.
"From India to Indonesia, China to Russia, and Australia to Japan, millions have moved from poverty to prosperity. China's rapid development helps drive this extraordinary and dynamic growth. In turn, China gains greatly from Asia's growth," assistant secretary of defence Wallace Gregson told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.
The move is aimed at raising funds for the $600 million spending plan to boost security at the porous US-Mexico border.
Several US lawmakers -- both from the House of Representatives and the Senate - had in the past had raised question over Reliance's business ties with Iran and had urged the Export Import Bank of the US to rescind loan guarantees to Reliance.
Indian-American Raj Goyle has won a primary from Kansas State to bag Democratic Party's nomination for the November Congressional elections, becoming the latest candidate from the community to join the race for the House of Representatives.
"Pakistan must be dissuaded from using terrorism as a state policy, and part of the US engagement with Pakistan should be focused on that result," says Ed Royce, senior Republican lawmaker.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's ouster through illegal means could trigger another round of democracy-related US sanctions against Pakistan, according to a report.
As weary Americans cast their ballots in the most expensive US Congressional elections, a 'Poll of Polls' has forecast bad news for India-bound President Barack Obama, saying his Democratic party would be trailing behind the Republicans.
Kal Penn is moving to a more financially viable career, albeit only nine months after he took up a public office in President Barack Obama's White House.
In a statement, US Customs and Immigration Services announced that it has received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap for fiscal year 2011.
A Congressional committee has moved ahead with the process to issue subpoenas for Tareq and Michele Salahi, after the Virginia refused to turn up for testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security.
'The Democrats have stacked the deck against President Trump and the Republicans. They have leaked out everything,' Trump said in a series of tweet.
The US government's $700 billion-bailout programme, aimed to bolster the country's crisis-ravaged financial system, is projected to cost as much as $109 billion to the American taxpayers.
Lisa Curtis, erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst and ex-senior Congressional staffer on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that the arrest and findings from the investigation of Chicago-based Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative John Coleman Headley, has awakened US officials to the gravity of the threat of the LeT and other Pakistan-based terrorist groups.
Claiming that China is the origin of malicious cyber activities targeting the US, a noted American security expert on Thursay said the government should vigorously monitor and defend its computer and critical infrastructure networks.
"President Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the Congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement.
US Vice President Joseph Biden has said America needs to keep its graph of progress going up so as to ensure that it keeps its "top dog" status over China and India intact. "You might call that chauvinism. I call it a necessary reality," Biden said in his address to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Issues Conference in washington as he emphasised the need to retain America's leadership in a world where emerging economies are fast occupying space.
The Trump administration terminated India's designation as a beneficiary developing nation under the Generalized System of Preferences in June.
The leaders were accompanied by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the bilateral meeting.
'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.
Notwithstanding the recent arrest of high-value Taliban leaders in Pakistan in which the Inter Services Intelligence played a key role, top US Senators and officials have indicated that they continue to remain suspicious about the real intentions of the Pakistani intelligence agency in view of its links to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other terror outfits.
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