US President Donald Trump's call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi signals a concerted effort to reset strained Washington-New Delhi ties, with a focus on 'big-ticket' energy and trade deals, including increased Indian imports of US LNG and LPG, and potential cooperation on small modular reactors.
US President Donald Trump greeted India on its 77th Republic Day, highlighting the historic bond between the two democracies amid ongoing trade tensions.
The India-US ties witnessed a major downturn after President Trump slapped a whopping 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods, including a 25 per cent punitive levy over Russian oil purchases.
Gor also announced that India will be a member of the Pax Silica alliance.
'Incidentally, Prime Minister (Modi) and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on eight occasions during 2025, covering different aspects of our wide-ranging partnership'
Communication channels between India and the US are open to resolve the ongoing tariff issues, and the glitch in trade ties is only temporary, given the long-term relationship between the two nations, government sources said on Wednesday. The US' 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports to America came into effect from August 27, barring a few sectors.
Posing a series of questions to the prime minister, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also asked if Modi would convey to the US president that India would send its own aircraft -- like Venezuela and Colombia did -- to bring back Indian deportees in the future.
New Delhi -- which has had a disastrous neighbourhood policy that has alienated almost all the States with which it has a land or sea border -- seemed to be unwilling over the past years to even consider that its unquestioning support of Sheikh Hasina was painting it into a corner, points out Mihir S Sharma.
New Delhi has reached out to Moscow while waiting for a new president in Washington. New Delhi knows well that in international relations, there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent national interests, points out Dr Rup Narayan Das.
Barring 2004 and 2009 when Navjot Singh Sidhu won the Amritsar seat as a BJP MP and 1998 when Daya Singh Sodhi from BJP was elected as the MP, it has essentially a Congress bastion.
US President George W Bush on Thursday said in a major speech on his government's Asian policy that the United States under his administration has dramatically turned around Washington-New Delhi ties, citing the landmark Indo-US nuclear deal. "For example, America has dramatically improved our ties with India, the world's largest democracy, including a historic agreement on civilian nuclear energy," he said.
Mahmood, 55, currently Pakistan's ambassador in Turkey, was granted a visa by India on Friday, the sources said.
A UNSC designation will subject Azhar to an assets freeze, travel ban and an arms embargo.
'What should worry India and which needs to be expressed is Russia's simultaneous proximity to both China and Pakistan from a strategic angle. That hasn't happened ever before,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
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