Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held talks with United States President Barack Obama on "substantive" bilateral, regional and international issues including defence, security, trade and situation in West Asia in view of threat by Islamic State militants.
United States President Barack Obama will visit Asia in April next year, to push closer ties, but India is unlikely to be part of his stopovers given that the country could very well be in the middle of a general election.
The United States has said that the threat from terrorist groups, in particular the Haqqani network, continues to emanate from inside Pakistan, dismissing top Pakistani diplomat's claim that the dreaded group responsible for audacious attacks in Afghanistan has been wiped out.
Nuclear powered India and Pakistan are constantly skirmishing in Kashmir, the outgoing US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, said identifying some of the Russian actions, Syria along with North Korea and South Asia or a pandemic flu as some of the less probable but catastrophic scenarios globally.
United States First Lady Michelle Obama's 50th birthday bash featured performances by pop stars Beyonce and Stevie Wonder as the "fun" party went on all night with her hubby President Barack Obama also shaking a leg.
The US is prepared to carry out "targeted and precise military action" in Iraq if required, President Barack Obama said on Thursday.
National Shiv Shankar Menon asserts that all is well in the India-US relationship. Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
Trump's transition team spokesman Sean Spicer listed Haley as one of the candidates.
'Biden's promise of returning to 'normalcy' after Trump appears to mean that the same old politicians, who are responsible for the 'endless wars' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are being brought out of the woodwork after four years,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Immediately after India launched its surgical strikes, sources said, it had informed the US of its action.
Modi presented Obama with a richly silk-covered special edition of Mahatma Gandhi's interpretation of the Bhagvad Gita, and recordings of Dr Martin Luther King's speech when he visited India in 1959 and also a specially framed photograph of Dr King when he visited Rajghat. Modi had scrupulously researched and selected these gifts for Obama and more gifts would be presented on Tuesday during their summit for both the President and the First Family.
'There is room for cautious optimism following the Harris anointment that America will return this year to more normal politics after the aberration of the Trump presidency,' points out Shreekant Sambrani.
'The interests of the United States and India are sharply aligned on the issue of Pakistan-based terrorism.'
On the backdrop of surgical strike, the US advised caution given the heavy militarisation between the two neighbours.
Summers dogged by controversies over past views