India's envoy to the United States Nirupama Rao attempts to counter the contention that there's a drift in the strategic partnership between the two nations. Aziz Haniffa reports
As the Barack Obama administration tries to impress upon India and other nations to join in the US-led sanctions regime against Iran to isolate that country for its alleged nuclear weapons programme and reduce their energy dependence on Teheran, India's Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao noted that India's imports of Iranian oil has been on the decline and predicted it may dissipate even further.
India and Israel on Tuesday vowed to upgrade their relations in all fields and work out a joint strategy to "checkmate" terrorism, while deciding on a roadmap to elevate cooperation in multiple areas like defence, agriculture, trade and hi-tech over the next two decades.
Political analysts said Sirisena's move to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister could lead to a constitutional crisis as the 19th amendment to the Constitution would not allow the sacking of Wickremesinghe as the premier without a majority.
A senior official in the Barack Obama administration has said that all contentious issues, including concern that Indian students are being duped by sham universities and colleges that have questionable credentials, would be on the table during the major United States-India Education Summit in October.
"Our goal is an integrated, unified national intelligence effort," the US president said.
Trump to sign an executive order aimed at achieving a more skills-based and merit-based immigration system.
To read Raymond Vickery's hugely interesting book while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still on Indian soil reminds one of the great distance India and the US have travelled since the 1998 nuclear tests.
Inspectors at six of the nation's busiest airports, including Washington Dulles International, are on alert for travellers of Pakistani descent.
Senior diplomatic sources, while conceding that there have been regular discussions of the Sri Lanka situation between Delhi and Washington, and that both countries were on the same page in terms of its policy regarding the repatriation of Tamil refugees and that the rights of the Tamil minority needs to be respected, reiterated that this issue would not figure in the discussion Clinton has while in Chennai
United States President Barack Obama's father had intended to put his unborn son up for adoption, as the senior Obama tried to appease US immigration officials who raised concerns about him having two wives as well as his "playboy ways", a new book has revealed.
The credit of breaking the news that Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden's mansion in Abbottabad was being raided can be probably be given to Twitter. IT consultant Sohaib Athar who live tweeted the operation (without knowing it was the world's most wanted man) he was blogging about is an internet star today. Interestingly, there were others who also wrote about the operation and a reconstruction of all the tweets brings to the fore the loopholes in America's bin Laden story.
Rahul 'Richard' Verma has become the second high-ranking Indian-American official in the Obama administration to resign and return to the private sector.
India needs to evolve a comprehensive security machinery with clearly laid down concepts, carefully defined leadership roles and a workable co-ordination drill.
Diplomats in Washington, DC, San Francisco, and other places have expressed their disquiet at the way Indian students have been treated like potential fugitives--even criminals--only because of irregularities in the way their university was run. It is not clear how much success they have had in helping Indian students, who are still paying thousands of dollars in bail.
About 60 students of the Pleasanton, California-based Tri-Valley University--shut down by federal authorities for alleged visa fraud--met India's consul general in San Francisco February 1, requesting for help in finding a way out from the nightmare they say has fallen on them.
Indonesia president Joko Widodo declared the 18th Asian Games open in a glittering ceremony on Saturday, launching what promises to be a frenetic fortnight of breathless sporting action featuring the best of the continent's athletes.
As radio-tagging of scores of Indian students duped by a 'sham' United States university continues to cause anger back home, the controversial institute has claimed that one of its Indian-origin staff was responsible for the immigration fraud and it was not directly involved in it. Breaking its silence, the California-based Tri Valley University, which was shut down in January, termed as 'baseless' the allegations of immigration fraud against the institute.
In a mass email alert to the community members, Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group, told them that they should be ready for additional screening at all the airports. "Sikhs should now expect to be secondarily screened 100 per cent of the time at American airports, even after passing through so-called Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines," it said.
A United States Congresswoman was 'gravely wounded' after she was shot in the head by a gunman, who went on a shooting rampage at a public event in Tucson in Arizona, killing at least six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and injuring 12 others. Democratic lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords, 40, a House Representative, was in a critical condition following a surgery late on Saturday night for a single gunshot wound to the head.
The United States has put the case of David Coleman Headley, Mumbai terror attack suspect now languishing in a Chicago jail, as one of the key counter-terrorism cases on information sharing with its partners.
The prime minister and president stated their intention to expand defence co-operation to bolster national, regional and global security.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is likely to announce on Thursday the government's decision on grant of dual citizenship at a conference of over 1,000 PIOs and NRIs in New Delhi.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
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The nomination of cluster heads for defence, infrastructure and finance business is awaited.
The National Tawheed Jamath is suspected of plotting the deadly Easter blasts.
The United States is looking forward to a "very substantive and consequential" visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington later next month and is working on a "pretty ambitious roadmap" for his bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, a top American official said.
Calling India an indispensable partner for the 21st century, United States Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday the dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit of this bilateral relationship is needed to solve some of world's greatest challenges.
Why the proposed United States rule change for H-4 (dependent) visa holders is not enough and what you should do about it
The designation of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and lumping it with the likes of other Pakistan-based terrorist outfits such as the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayiba, 'is a no brainer,' and will likely happen before the month is out, senior Obama administration officials told rediff.com.
Akayed Ullah has been charged on five counts, including providing material support and resources to terrorist organisations, use of weapons of mass destruction, bombing a place of public law, destruction of property by means of explosive and use of destructive device.
Professor Marvin Weinbaum, Scholar-in-Residence at the Middle East Institute, who has served in several US administrations as an expert on South Asia, particularly in the State Department's Policy Planning Bureau and Bureau of Intelligence and Research, told Congress on Thursday that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, responsible for the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, could surpass or replace Al Qaeda as the number one terror network worldwide.
Experts tell Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that a Modi government may be Asia oriented, but the US will remain a deep influence. Aziz Haniffa reports
The BRICS summit made clear that China's support for Pakistan is unwavering. China will continue to pressure India to ease tensions with Pakistan and resolve the Kashmir dispute.
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya questioned the president's decision to suspend parliament till November 16, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country.
Sirisena's sacking of Wickremesinghe was the culmination of an year of bitter relations between them on several policy matters. The president has been critical of the prime minister and his policies, especially on economy and security.
The Salahi couple, Tareq and Michaele, infuriated United States lawmakers as they refused to answer any of their questions and invoked their right to remain silent in their forced appearance before a Congressional committee. The celebrity-hounding couple from Virginia was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday and was questioned on the circumstances of their attending the White House State Dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on November 24.
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