"India is one of our most important allies and creating an exchange program between members of the US Congress and Representatives of India's Parliament will only deepen our ties and lead to greater understanding between our countries," McDermott said.
The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee is divided on the usefulness of continuing US aid to Pakistan, reports Aziz Haniffa.
The Barack Obama administration apparently believes that Pakistan has discarded its use of ISI-sponsored terrorist groups to foment its strategic depth strategy vis-a-vis India in Afghanistan, and has told Congress that Pakistan has also re-deployed its troops from the Indian border to its border with Afghanistan to meet the internal terrorist threat it faces.
Jonah Blank, till recently policy director for South Asia on the majority staff of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said the Indian decision-making process "drives US policymakers crazy."
A Christian organisation in the US has urged the Bush administration not to start implementing the civilian nuclear agreement with India unless the violence against the community in Orissa stops.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that even with a firewall that has been constructed against the diversion of massive American military aid to Pakistan to the nuclear weapons programme, there are no ironclad guarantees that aid cannot be diverted and hence it remains a major concern to the US. Clinton was appearing before the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the Obama administration's foreign aid budget for the fiscal year
Nancy Powell, being the quintessential diplomat, and attempting to be as circumspect as possible, replied, "Iran and India have a long tradition of trade across energy and other fields. It is one that is clearly a part of our sanctions regime, that we are hoping to see it significantly reduced."
The United States has announced to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 each by January 15 next year, which drew sharp reaction from influential lawmakers across the aisle.
Just back from a trip to Pakistan, United States Senator John Kerry says the Obama administration expected more from that country to root out terrorist groups holed up there, observing a "fullness of measure of effort" is now required.
While Obama administration officials and representatives of US industry strongly expressed their angst over India's rejection of the American fighter aircraft but did not want to be quoted by name, leading South Asia policy wonks in Washington had no such compunctions in interviews with rediff.com.
With business worth billions of dollars to be gained from India, American groups are working overtime to facilitate the United States' participation in the Asian powerhouse's nuclear sector, says a Washington Post report.
The US is the worst-hit nation with 211,793 deaths and 7,549,429 infections.
The influential pro-Pakistan lobby has launched a concerted campaign urging US President Barack Obama to visit Pakistan during his trip to India November 6-9.
Lisa Curtis, erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst and ex-senior Congressional staffer on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that the arrest and findings from the investigation of Chicago-based Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative John Coleman Headley, has awakened US officials to the gravity of the threat of the LeT and other Pakistan-based terrorist groups.
Egged on by more than 160 venture capitalists, including several Indian Americans -- the majority of whom are from California's Silicon Valley -- United States Senators John F Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, have introduced legislation to create jobs in America and increasing America's global competitiveness by helping immigrant entrepreneurs obtain US visas.
US Congressman Ed Royce, a ranking Republican on the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee, has warned the Obama administration against undoing all the Bush administration's hard work in developing closer ties with India, by coveting China at the expense of New Delhi.
Influential United States Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the new Democratic co-chair of the reconstituted US Senate India Caucus, who took over from the erstwhile Senator and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in welcoming Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Washington, has said, "That President Obama chose the visit of Indian Prime Minister Singh as the occasion for the first State Dinner of his administration should come as no surprise."
The continuing and sustained terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the recent attack on its army headquarters, and the past record of the nuclear black market operated by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb A Q Khan, are certainly cause for concern and remain so, but that country's nuclear arsenal is secure, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said
The report submitted by Obama on Monday -- which is the first one given to the US Congress by a President as required by the legislation signed into law last October by then President George W Bush, is one in a series of determinations required to be provided to lawmakers on the implementation of the Act, which details India's actions from IAEA safeguards to other non-proliferation commitments.
The bill, known as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, also known as the Kerry-Lugar bill calls for the tripling of US aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion annually over five years (fiscal years 2009-2013) "as a long-term pledge to the people of Pakistan."
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.
India needs to be assertive in its stance that it will not sit down for a dialogue where it is treated at par with its anarchic and erratic neighbour.
The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama has two options to deal with the fallout of the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai: (1) To support, and to garner international backing for, Pakistan's democratically elected leadership in order to enable it to act firmly against terrorist groups on its soil or (2) To designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism under United States law.
America's nuclear fuel supply assurances to India are a "political commitment" and the government cannot "legally compel" US firms to sell a "given product" to New Delhi, top officials told a Congressional panel as the administration worked hard to push the Indo-US deal through the Congress before September 26.
"We have been very clear with the Indians, should India test, as it has agreed not to do, or should India in any way violate the IAEA safeguards agreements to which it would be adhering, the deal, from our point of view, would, at that point, be off," Burns pointed out.
Speaking to media persons after the hearing where senior Bush Administration officials testified on the agreement, Dodd, asked the first question by rediff.com as to the bottom line vis-a-vis the possible approval of the deal by Congress by September 26, said, "The evidence in the past has been that there is a strong desire to reach agreement, and a clear understanding of the value and importance of this."
Hasan is also one of the leading fund-raisers for the party and its candidates in California and the leading Indian American 'bundler' of contributions, first for the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton and now for Senator Barack Obama.
Boucher, who is the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, was asked by rediff.com not to dodge the question but to clearly articulate which one was binding on Indiathe Hyde Act or the 123 agreement. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had recently assured the Congress that for the nuclear deal to be consummated, it has to be consistent with the Hyde Act.
"The first lesson from the Indian ASAT is just the simple question of why did they do that. And the answer should be, I think to all the committee looking at it, is that they did that because they are concerned about threats to their nation from space," US Strategic Command Commander General John E Hyten told members of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Schaffer said that the recent Supreme Court ruling reinstating the Chief Justice who was fired by Musharraf "...was a serious embarrassment to Musharraf" and also interfered with his "...strategy of seeking re-election later this year."
He is a longtime Clinton benefactor, who has suddenly found himself thrust into the public domain in the wake of major articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Shrugging aside the recent reports of Pakistan illegally modifying the United States-supplied harpoon missiles to target India and former President Pervez Musharraf's revelations that he diverted the massive American military aid provided to Pakistan to fight the war on terror to the eastern border to bolster his country's defenses for a potential convention conflict with India, the US Senate passed a massive $7.5 billion economic and military largesse to Pakistan.
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