Two prominent US Senators on Monday said Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf should look for a "graceful exit" instead of being forced out of power in the wake of parliamentary election results in which opposition parties scored stunning victories.
Pak's role in Kabul is not sending a good message to India, a top American lawmaker has said
The announcement for the QUAD Caucus came from Congressman Ami Bera, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Indo-Pacific Subcommittee, Congressman Rob Wittman, and Senators Tammy Duckworth and Pete Ricketts, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in the United States, the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee under a revised schedule on Tuesday, formally put the US-India civilian nuclear agreement on its agenda and approved it by a margin of 19-2.
Paving the way for India and the United States to work together in enhancing global energy security, the Senate on Tuesday unanimously cleared a Bill seeking the diversification of sources of energy and stimulating development of alternative fuels.
The US Senate has unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution introduced by Senators Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat and George Voinovich, Ohio Republican -- both members of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- condemning the terrorists attacks in Mumbai and applauding India's restraint so far as it investigates the attacks.
Pakistan is bigger than Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea combined. There's 156 million people. They have 24 to 55 nuclear weapons. They have not only the bomb, the thermonuclear device, they have the missile that can couple with the bomb, and it can fly all the way to the Mediterranean.
Ties between Pakistan's ISI and Taliban remain troubling for the United States and this relationship should be "fixed", a top US senator has said.
The White House on Wednesday stood behind Eric Garcetti asserting he is qualified to serve as United States Ambassador to India, even as a Congressional committee vote on his nomination was postponed till March 8 after a Republican Senator placed a hold on his nomination.
Senator Lugar's statement on N-deal bill
United States Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the new Democratic co-chair of the re-constituted US Senate India Caucus, feels that he has impossible shoes to fill, that of erstwhile Senator and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Dodd, one of the senior-most members of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, addressed an overflowing audience of Indian Americans from across the country in the ornate Mansfield Room of the US Capitol.
'While the President has been critical of India, he has gone out of his way to compliment PM Modi. They have an incredible relationship.'
After the 1962 War with China, there was a demand to forge greater defence cooperation between India and the West. One such voice was that of Sudhir Ghosh, a distinguished MP, to tie up strategic cooperation with the USA immediately after the Chinese attack on India, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
Senator Joseph R Biden, Jr, the chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will be the key player in moving the US-India civilian nuclear agreement forward in Congress if India succeeds in getting in back on the Congressional court expeditiously, says it may be possible to get the deal consummated this year, but that it's going to be in terms of a best-case scenario a photo-finish.
"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."
On March 8, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to advance former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti's nomination as US ambassador to India.
Speaking at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: "There are mixed signals here that are very, very troubling and that the United States needs to be able to have alternatives for carrying out its foreign policy in that region."
'There is simply too much bringing us together,' says nuclear proliferation expert Leonard Spector.
"Does it make sense to spend hundreds of millions on P-3 naval surveillance aircraft specifically designed to hunt submarines? So far as I know, al-Qaeda has not yet developed a submarine navy," the Delaware Democrat added. "The White House claims that weapons systems like these are indeed counter-terrorism tools, but such a claim is an insult to common sense," said Senator Joseph Biden.
Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
The ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Richard Lugar, has bemoaned the fact that more than three years after the historic US-India civilian nuclear deal was signed, it still remains in limbo sans any implementation.
A scribe who reported government-army rift had barred from leaving Pakistan.
The massive $7.5 billion aid legislation to Pakistan, authored by United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John F Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar, would be approved without any difficulty in the coming weeks. The massive aid to Pakistan will be approved in spite of the serious doubts raised by some members of the committee, including a senior Democrat and a few Republicans, they said.
We have nothing to gain by raising our concerns internationally as our narrative has got entangled with several controversial concepts in the United Nations, asserts Ambassador T N Sreenivasan.
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence-sponsored Haqqani Network, responsible for the killings of United States and coalition troops in Afghanistan and widely believed to have been responsible for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul a few years ago, is on the verge of being designated a Foreign Terrorist Organisation.
The US Senate has confirmed Indian-American woman administrator Nisha Desai Biswal as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, making her the first person from the community to hold the top diplomatic position.
All efforts of Trump's party to repeal the healthcare of his predecessor has failed so far, mainly due to the opposition of some of his own Senators.
The reality is that far from being friendless, India is better positioned in the world than at any point post-Cold War, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who was on a visit to the US last month, said that America's relationship with Pakistan has "not served" either of the two countries and raised questions on the Biden administration's approval of a USD 450-million sustenance package for the F-16 fleet.
"Selling military hardware to Pakistan -- with a generous subsidy from American taxpayers -- is no way to convince them to become responsible players in the international community and assist in the fight against terrorism," Rand Paul said.
'Washington senses that the anchor sheet of India's strategic autonomy lies in its longstanding partnership with Russia, which remains firm and immutable despite the changes in world politics in the post-Cold War era,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.<
'Today, our hearts are with India. Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones during the bridge collapse and join the people of Gujarat in mourning the loss of too many lives cut short,' Biden said.
The bill now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump's approval.
The US is making investments in defence ties with India to uphold a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, a top Pentagon official told lawmakers Thursday indicating that strengthening ties with New Delhi is one of the key factors to address the pacing challenge from China.
The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee is divided on the usefulness of continuing US aid to Pakistan, reports Aziz Haniffa.
