'A good ambassador needs to know, and to represent, the interests of the United States. In South Asia, career officers have done well by this standard; so have most of the non-career appointees.' Career diplomat Nancy J Powell, the US ambassador to India, resigned on Monday. Retired United States ambassadors Howard B Schaffer and Teresita C Schaffer look at how political appointees and career diplomats sent as envoys to India and South Asia have fared over the years.
The strengthening ties between India and United States have made Pakistan paranoid. Fearing that US might just discard it, Pakistan is now turning to its "enduring friend" China, believe America's powerful couple in diplomatic circles -- former ambassadors Howard and Teresita Schaffer. Aziz Haniffa reports
Attempting to parse the symbolism and the substance of the summit between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a wasteful exercise, says former diplomat Teresita C Schaffer, currently Director of the South Asia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. 'Substance' takes time to achieve, and much of it is built on the bedrock of such 'symbolic' high level meetings, she argued.
The new administration in the United States means more continuity than change in Indo-US relations, says Teresita C Schaffer, director of South Asia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
'The unresolved problems with Pakistan are a bit of a drag on its other international ambitions,' Teresita C Schaffer, director of the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC, think-tank and former US diplomat, tells Aziz Haniffa.
Retired senior US diplomats Teresita and Howard Schaffer believe the 'US cannot afford to continue restricting its contacts with Narendra Modi.' Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
The diplomatic row between the United States and India over the arrest of an Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was mishandled by both countries and it is high time to move forward and find a diplomatic resolution, two former American diplomats have said.
'In the time I have been an Indiawallah, I have seen three US Presidential visits to India, nuclear sanctions, nuclear cooperation, a border conflict with Pakistan, the growth of IT services, a government losing a confidence vote, and so much more,' Rick Rossow, the new Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies tells Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Friends and colleagues pay rich tributes to the "charming, approachable, and very accessible" Indian Constitution scholar Granville 'Red' Austin.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
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