United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday said India has not been a good trading partner and announced that he will raise the tariffs on New Delhi 'very substantially' over the next 24 hours because it is buying Russian oil.
Trump couldn't care less anymore about the Israeli demand for Iran's 'de-nuclearisation' and 'de-militarisation.' Trump pins hopes on a grand bargain with Iran as a partner in America First, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Uttam's take on the political situation in Delhi
The United States on Saturday said India's position on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not impact the nuclear agreement between the two countries and expressed hope about moving forward with the landmark agreement."We've said before that the resolution that was passed on Thursday unanimously by the United Nations Security Council does not have any bearing on our bilateral civil nuclear cooperation," said an US official.
If the US' renewed closeness with Pakistan ends up strengthening Pakistan's military, it will clearly show that Washington no longer wants a strong India and could be ready to let China dominate Asia, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Decisive action has replaced dossiers and the new India can go to any extent to uproot terrorism, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday while stating that Operation Sindoor was on pause as the armed forces had achieved the desired objectives.
Israel's aerial assault on Iran is widely viewed as an act of naked aggression with no basis in international law, carried out unilaterally despite US opposition and aimed at derailing ongoing US-Iran nuclear negotiations, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
According to a study by the Centre for the Study of Science, Technology and Policy based in Bangalore, there is a good chance of nuclear power contributing about 57,000 MW by 2030 through LWRs and FBRs. By building more PHWRs too -- with totally indigenous technology, but run on imported uranium fuel -- the level could touch 70,000 MW or higher
'The devastating Indian Air Force strikes on the night of May 9-10 exposed Pakistan's vulnerabilities.' 'If these had continued, it would have further degraded Pakistan's ability to continue with air operations.'
The heart of the matter is that the Indo-US nuclear deal, unless it is closed now right now and on American terms, will soon need to be harmonised with the new Russian-American format and the international regime emanating out of it
Acutely conscious that he's left with less than four years to create his legacy, Trump is undoubtedly a man in a hurry, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Foreign ministers trying to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear programme in Vienna are considering extending the negotiations as the Monday deadline looms large with "serious gaps" in the dialogue.
By threatening to punish India with high tariff, Trump is actually planting a tantalising thought in the Indian mind that the Modi government should suitably 'incentivise' him, explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'I said, fellas, come on, let's make a deal, let's do some trading, let's not trade nuclear missiles, let's trade the things that you make so beautifully, and they both have very powerful leaders, very strong leaders, smart leaders, and it all stopped.'
Another special flight carrying 296 Indian nationals and four Nepalese nationals stranded in conflict-hit Iran landed safely in New Delhi on Wednesday, taking the total number of people evacuated under Operation Sindhu to 3,154.
India has offered to place 14 of the 22 thermal power reactors under IAEA safeguards in a phased manner between 2006-14, Dr Kakodkar told a media conference, adding the agreement would not affect the country's strategic programme in any respect.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he "helped settle" the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America would do a "lot of trade" with them if they stopped the conflict.
The formulations in the declaration in reference to terrorism is going to be to our "satisfaction", Dammu Ravi, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry said on Monday.
With United States President Donald Trump reiterating his claims of brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, the Congress on Wednesday asked what do the 'typically loquacious' Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar have to say about this revelation and did they 'mortgage' India's security interests in the face of US 'pressure'.
'The protection of secrecy and anonymity gets lost with this linking.'
There was no reference to trade in talks between top leaders of India and the United States during the India-Pakistan military conflict, government sources said on Monday after American President Donald Trump claimed that he pressured New Delhi and Islamabad to stop hostilities by threatening to cut trade with both countries.
'Trump's sons, and the son of Trump's Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff, are in the crypto business and recently signed deals with Pakistan's crypto council.' 'It may not be coincidental that not long before the Trump-Munir meeting, the head of Pakistan's crypto council met with Trump's White House crypto policy czar.'
'We are part of a global nuclear embargo. We are subject to global nuclear apartheid. And we want to move on, so that our people get the opportunities that they deserve in the context of another option in the energy sector,' says Science & Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.
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.
United States President George W Bush will sign the law on the India-US nuclear agreement very soon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in New Delhi on Saturday.Addressing a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Rice assured that the US will keep its commitments both to the 123 agreement and the Hyde Act while implementing the nuclear deal with India.Rice added that the Hyde Act was consistent with the 123 agreement.
The Communist Party of India Marxist Politburo has decided to meet in New Delhi soon to take an 'appropriate decision' if the talks between the Left Front and the United Progressive Alliance fail to end the logjam over the India-United States nuclear agreement.The party central committee, in its meeting in Kolkata last week, had authorised the politburo to take a final decision if the UPA government went ahead with the operationalisation of the nuclear deal.
>The formal signing ceremony, originally expected to take place on Monday December 11 in the Rose Garden at the White House, has been postponed to later in the week.
Gokhale has said that China used its "close connections" with the Left parties in India to "build domestic opposition" to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
So far, most of the injured have been released. Currently, 106 people are being treated in hospitals, and another 149 are being treated in the emergency room.
Sitaram Yechury strived to have the country's Left movement shed its doctrinaire approach to India's socio-cultural complexities and stitch electoral and social alliances to fight the Sangh Parivar.
Sharif said that the US president had shown beyond any doubt that "he is a man for peace... and beneficial business deals".
Pakistan has warned the international community that any military moves by India shall be 'responded to assuredly and decisively... onus of any escalatory spiral and its consequences shall squarely lie with India.' Implicit in the statement is a veiled threat that even a nuclear threshold may be reached if push comes to shove, warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'We are too important to want to be paired with Pakistan but too intensely connected to it to successfully detach ourselves,' asserts Aakar Patel.
'Chinese are going bang, bang, bang building 30-35 reactors.' 'We should announce a programme of 50 new reactors and show that we mean business on the ground and not just announcements.'
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Apple products if the tech giant does not shift iPhone production from India to the United States. Trump said he expects iPhones sold in the US to be manufactured in America and not India, or anyplace else. He also said that he had a "little problem" with Apple CEO Tim Cook for building manufacturing facilities in India. Cook had previously said that the majority of iPhones sold in the US would have India as their country of origin. Experts say that shifting production to the US would be more expensive than assembling iPhones in India.
The stage may be set for a recalibrated US-Iran relationship, suggests Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It is important for India to pay close attention to both the tone and substance of authoritative remarks coming out of Pakistan, explains former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
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