Meira Kumar set to become Speaker

The appointment of veteran diplomat Peter Burleigh as charge d'affaires at the American embassy in New Delhi was a Department decision and not on the recommendation of Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as had been rumored because of their earlier longtime working relationship, senior Administration sources have told rediff.com.

President Barack Obama has nominated Rahul 'Richard' Verma, currently a partner with the top-notch international law firm in Washington,DC -- Steptoe & Johnson LLP -- as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, and sources told Rediff India Abroad that considering that he has been a much respected Congressional staffer, his confirmation process before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the coming weeks would be a shoo-in.

This would make him the highest-ranking Indian American ever in the US Department of State. Over a month ago, Verma was appointed as one of the leads of the Agency Review Team overseeing the US Department of Defence for President-elect Barack Obama's Transition.

Dubbing the Mumbai terror strikes as 'most horrendous', Parliament on Wednesday sought strict action and all out efforts to prevent recurrence of such attacks. In the wake of the Mumbai terror strikes, Home Minister P Chidambaram will make a statement on terrorism in Lok Sabha on Thursday.

The presence of more Indian Americans in the team has made the whole community proud.

The election of Obama as President is bound to be a matter of rejoicing for the downtrodden sections of society everywhere in the world. Most of all, the immediate effect will naturally be on the black population of the US itself. There will be a surge in their self-esteem and sense of integration with the mainstream and this will be all to the good, says B S Raghavan

"UPA is like a patient in the ICU room. The first question everyone asks is whether he is going to survive or not," Advani said in a scathing attack on the prime minister and the ruling UPA coalition. "If people vote NDA back to power, we will renegotiate the deal to make it equal and ensure that there are no constraints on our strategic autonomy," the BJP leader said.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee rejected suggestions that the United Progressive Alliance government's capacity to operationalise the deal has weakened after the Congress' debacle in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. "We would not like to proceed with the deal if the Left parties withdraw support from the government," he told Karan Thapar's India Tonight programme on CNBC.

Choosing the next Dalai Lama is too profound a tradition to be controlled by the Communists in Beijing.

Amid talk of mid-term polls, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party appear to have gone into election mode and have launched hectic efforts to get their acts together.

Khanna, an attorney who is perhaps one of the most articulate spokesmen of Indian Americans in the Democratic Party, argued political mobilisation is the final step for the community.

Tabloidisation seems to be working for Hindi news channels, fetching them viewers and advertisers.

President George W Bush signs the first part of the enabling legislation into law today.

Despite his acquittal in three cases relating to the 1984 riots, he could never get over the stigma following serious allegations that he had led mobs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984.