Indo-US Relations

[ajtr]

Handling Headley-Why the US refuses to oblige India

THE Headley case and the US decision on plea bargain and shielding him from the custodial interrogation by the Indian authorities even while providing them access to him have generated understandable dissatisfaction in India. It is pointed out that the kind of information that can be obtained in custodial interrogation cannot be elicited during such an exercise conducted through mediation by US officials.

It is also pointed out that the US insisted on rendition by Pakistan of Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani terrorist who killed CIA operatives at the gates of CIA headquarters in Langely in 1993; Ramzi Yousuf, the Pakistani terrorist who attempted to blow up the World Trade Towers in 1993; and some of the senior Al-Qaeda leaders, in particular the Pakistani mastermind of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Of these, Kansi was executed after trial and Ramzi Yousuf is undergoing life imprisonment in the US. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is yet to be tried though he was renditioned by Pakistan. There has been no plea bargain with him. He was subjected to repeated water-boarding torture and information was extracted from him by methods now repudiated by President Obama and his administration.

Other terrorists and terror-related Pakistanis are in Pakistan with the US either not pressing Islamabad strongly enough for their rendition or Pakistan not willing to hand them over. One is Omar Sheikh, who led US journalist Daniel Pearl into a trap, ending in his murder. The Sheikh confessed to the murder and was sentenced to death, but he is still alive in prison some seven years after the sentence of death. Omar Sheikh was also the person who wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, leader of the 9/11 plot, presumably under instructions from Gen Mehmood Ahmad, then chief of the ISI. Though the US got General Mehmood removed from his post, he is doing well in Pakistan. All the US efforts and pressures have not resulted in Washington or the IAEA being allowed access to Dr A.Q. Khan, the notorious nuclear proliferator.

Recently in the case of Mullah Baradar, the Afghan Taliban leader, after initially refusing access to him by the US authorities Islamabad has agreed to allow them on Pakistani soil. But Baradar was captured after the US agencies in Pakistan first located him and then called the ISI to arrest him. The US, however, has not succeeded in getting access to all the persons whom it might have wanted access to and who are in Pakistan’s custody.

It is clear as daylight that Headley was selected by US agencies to penetrate the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). His name changing, the facility with which he travelled in Pakistan and India, his attending LeT training camps, his cultivating LeT operatives, even his reconnaissance missions in India and his cultivating potential LeT sympathisers and collaborators in the country all fit in with such a mission assigned to him. In such cases, often the penetrator may have to prove his commitment to the cause in order to gain the LeT’s confidence by carrying out the commissioned tasks.

The task given to the agent may well be a terrorist act. It is for the penetrating agency (the US handlers and their superiors) to decide whether to permit the assigned agent to carry out a terrorist task to gain the confidence of the terrorist organization (LeT) or to withdraw him at that stage. If the ultimate objective of the penetration operation was considered so important as to necessitate the agent to prove his credentials to the LeT the agency might have decided to authorise him to go ahead. It is also possible the penetrating organisation or the agent may not know the full scope of the terrorist act. A reconnaissance campaign need not necessarily mean all the targets would be attacked simultaneously in one operation.

There was always the risk as it happened in this case — the agent crossing over to the other side. That might be due to his ideological affinity or it might be a case of buying off once the LeT discovered the penetration operation. Headley himself may not have had much choice once he was discovered. As soon as the US agencies realised that Headley had crossed over to the other side, they had to arrest him and put him on trial. It cannot be asserted whether this is what happened. But this hypothesis has greater plausibility than the various alternatives advanced.

If this had been the case the US will not hand over Headley because it cannot afford to expose its penetration operation. The Headley story may be only one of the several simultaneous ongoing operations. He may have intelligence on some others. Intelligence obtained from him may be relevant to continuing other operations. The Pakistani media has carried numerous stories of US security organisation Xe services (formerly Black Water) operating in Pakistan. Apart from Mullah Baradar’s arrest in which US agencies appear to have played a role, there are reports of other extremist personnel being targeted by the US well inside Pakistan

The US suffered the 9/11 attack plotted in Pakistan by a Pakistani. It has been subjected to various attempts at terrorist attacks on its homeland by Al-Qaeda and the LeT. While the US initiated an attack on Afghanistan within a month of the 9/11 outrage because the Taliban government gave asylum to Al-Qaeda, it has been patient in respect of Islamabad though the Pakistan Army-led administration over the last eight years had harboured, nourished, re-equipped and unleashed five terrorist organisations — the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda and the LeT. Washington could not take any punitive action against Pakistan since Islamabad had shielded itself with nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands. Dealing with Pakistan called for a strategy of sleeping with the enemy.

According to US accounts, Pakistan has been persuaded to initiate action against the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is likely that the US itself may have to deal with the Haqqani network after its surge ends in North Waziristan with concentrated drone attacks. But the LeT is the Pakistan Army’s most precious terrorist asset and it is mostly Punjabi with its headquarters at Muridke, close to Lahore.

A US-Pakistan strategic dialogue has been convened in Washington on March 24. The Pakistan Army Chief and the ISI chief are attending the meeting besides its Foreign Minister. The US side will be led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Ambassador Holebrooke and CIA Director Leon Panetta are also scheduled to participate. Now that the Headley case and his involvement with the LeT have attracted worldwide attention, it will be of interest to see how the issue is handled during this dialogue.

 

[ajtr]

India delivers growth for Domino's Pizza

Updated 1d 5h ago | Comment | Recommend E-mail | Save | Print |

Enlarge By Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

CEO J. Patrick Doyle with workers at Domino's Pizza headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich. Doyle opened Domino's 300th outlet in India last week.


ABOUT DOYLE

Title: President and CEO, Domino's Pizza

Education: Bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Michigan in 1985; MBA from the University of Chicago.

Career: Ran the U.S. baby-food business for Gerber Products before joining Domino's in 1997. Previous jobs were with First Chicago and Intervascular in La Ciotat, France.

Family: Married with two daughters, ages 16 and 14.


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By Tom Walsh, Detroit Free Press
J. Patrick Doyle, new CEO of Domino's Pizza, spent his first days on the job last week in India and Saudi Arabia.
On Thursday, he opened Domino's (DPZ) 300th outlet in India and its 65th new location there this year, making India the fastest-growing market for the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based pizza-delivery chain.

"In the next three to five years, our sales outside the U.S. will surpass our sales here," Doyle, 46, said in his first extensive interview since taking the reins from David Brandon.

About 55% of Domino's $5.6 billion in sales last year were in the United States.

Doyle said there's still room for growth in the U.S., but it will come from taking a larger share of a mature pizza market where mom-and-pop stores and small chains still deliver 50% of all sales.

Overseas, Domino's same-store sales have increased for 64 consecutive quarters, Doyle said, and the explosive growth shows no indications of tapering off.

Unlike many new CEOs after the economic carnage of the past few years, Doyle takes over at a company doing well, in a smooth transition from his highly regarded predecessor.

Brandon, Domino's CEO for the past 11 years, took over two weeks ago as athletic director at the University of Michigan but remains on Domino's board as non-executive chairman.

BACK TO SCHOOL: Former Domino's CEO David Brandon returns to alma mater
Domino's stock price, which closed at $13.35 Friday, has nearly doubled from $7.30 in early November.

It was $8.76 on Jan. 5, the day Brandon's departure and Doyle's appointment were announced.

Even more dazzling has been the performance of Jubilant FoodWorks, Domino's master franchisee in India, which went public in January and saw its shares jump 58% on the first day.

Peppy Paneer for dinner, anyone?

Peppy Paneer is a pizza topping offered in India. Doyle said it features a cheese with a consistency similar to tofu.

Domino's, founded in Ypsilanti, Mich., by Tom Monaghan in 1960, has recently attracted lots of attention — some wanted and some not.

Domino's became a social-media must-see early last year after two since-fired employees posted videos on YouTube that showed them tampering with food before serving it to customers.

The employees were arrested and one was recently sentenced to two years probation. The other is still awaiting trial.

More recently, Domino's changed its U.S. pizza recipes and followed that up with a daring marketing campaign in which employees read aloud some scathing customer comments about the former pizza, comparing the crust to cardboard and the sauce to ketchup.

The new recipe features a garlic-coated crust, an herb sauce with more kick and a shredded mix of mozzarella and provolone cheeses.

The ad campaign is generating lots of buzz.

"We knew going in that anything we called 'new and improved' would be a terrible starting point," Doyle said. "Consumers would block it out. If you Google the phrase 'new and improved,' you get (more than) 160 million hits.

"It's remarkable the campaign is getting as much attention as it is. All we're doing is telling the truth about what our customers said and doing something about it," he said.

 

[ajtr]

US wants india to open up its markets so they can earn profit from india but on the other hand they sanction indian companies like reliance petroleum doing business with iran.usa still santions indian companies and denies high end technologies to india.Business is two way street.you earn some we do the same.but not that only i should earn and i must sanction others.

Open up markets, U.S. tells India

The U.S. has called upon India to open up its markets and further liberalise trade policies in order to strengthen bilateral ties.

Speaking at a conference organised by the Asia Society here on Saturday, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake mentioned four areas where India should change its laws to make the market more open and receptive to foreign capital: increasing the cap on foreign direct investment, reducing agricultural import barriers, lowering barriers to infrastructure development (by developing a long-term debt market and removing local content requirements) and reducing regulatory barriers to business.

“While an emerging middle class has helped compensate for these challenges, reforms could bring India to the double-digit growth path it seeks … it will also promote inclusive growth throughout South Asia where intra-regional trade accounts for just five per cent of the region's total trade.”

Mr. Blake's observations come three days after India and the U.S. signed a framework for cooperation in trade and investment, the implementation of which will be overseen by high-level officials from both countries.

Success in the Doha Round, he said, depended on “clarifications” by “advanced” developing countries like China, Brazil and India on the opportunities available in their markets.

“Just as Americans benefit from our open economy, Indians will benefit from a renewed commitment to make their markets more accessible for outside investors.” Open markets through lowering of “self-imposed” trade barriers would also strengthen India's strategic partnerships, make it a more “relevant” player and help it achieve its “rightful place” in the global order.

The U.S. official singled out the Bharti-Walmart joint venture Best Price to illustrate how “a company and the [Indian] community are being held back” by the existing laws.

BILATERAL TRADE

Mr. Blake noted the increase in bilateral trade and pointed out that India, from being the 18th largest trading partner in 2008, jumped four places the next year. “We'd like to see it make the top 10 in 2010.” Appreciating the 64 per cent annual average increase in Indian investment in the U.S. over the past four years, he said this helped in job creation.

On India-U.S. ties in general, Mr. Blake said the strategic dialogue touched nearly every corner of the bilateral relationship — from terrorism to women's empowerment; from clean energy to the goal of a second green revolution. He referred to U.S. President Barack Obama “dedicating [the hosting of] his first and thus far only state visit” to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “clear signal that he [Obama] considers the U.S.-India relationship a key cornerstone in shaping the 21st [century] world.” As the U.S. confronted global challenges like terrorism, pandemics and climate change, “we need India as a global partner,” Mr. Blake said.

 

[ajtr]

Actions speak louder than words, with good reason. And US actions w.r.t. Pakistan leave little doubt, even in the minds of ardent US fans in india, that USA looks after its own interests which seem to align better with Islamabad than with Delhi.

America's India Envoy Needs to Run a Permanent Campaign

By PAUL BECKETT

America's ambassador here, Timothy J. Roemer, will need all the skills he honed as a politician on the campaign trail in Indiana and Washington as he stumps across India in coming months. Time and again, he can expect to address questions about the U.S.'s commitment to establishing India in the top rung of its global allies.The reason: As the U.S.'s relations improve with Pakistan, its relationship with India, if not very delicately handled and consistently nurtured, will inevitably suffer fallout.On Wednesday, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of Pakistan's military, will be part of a delegation to Washington that will engage in a strategic dialogue with the U.S. Pakistan clearly sees it as an opportunity to showcase what it is doing to aid America's cause in Afghanistan (rounding up Taliban leaders in Pakistan) and what it wants in return (more aid, direct U.S. involvement in Pakistan and India's fledgling peace talks as well as cooperation on civil nuclear power.)

There's more on the visit here.Strategically, India and the U.S. have very different goals from Pakistan and the U.S. And there is a danger in assuming that just because something is good for Pakistan and the U.S., it is automatically bad for India. But the U.S.'s closer cooperation with Pakistan will inevitably provoke a visceral reaction in India that U.S. officials cannot ignore.
When Anne Patterson, U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, was quoted saying the U.S. and Pakistan were entering talks on civil nuclear cooperation – which the embassy identified as a misquotation – it dominated the news here (far more than it did in Pakistan.)

"The emotional response is immediate, there are banner headlines even if the story is denied," says Swaran Singh, professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

It doesn't help when the U.S., by comparison, looks like it is not cooperating completely with India. After Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake said Indian investigators would have access to David Headley, who pleaded guilty recently in Chicago to scouting terror sites in Mumbai, Mr. Roemer had to issue a statement Tuesday explaining that "no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made."

It is a further challenge for him that, right now, the U.S. and India don't have major issues that can be resolved in a way that shows the strength and depth of the relationship. The landmark civilian nuclear deal is awaiting the Indian Parliament's passage of a liability cap to move forward. There are some defense deals in the works but making a show of those runs the risk of offending Pakistan. Instead, Mr. Roemer is left to make the most of softer options that are all worthy if rather dull: clean energy, education, agriculture.

It is a task he clearly relishes, nonetheless. Last Friday, he delivered a 2,350 word speech on educational ties between the U.S. and India full of the kinds of phrases that only a seasoned politician could deliver with conviction. Consider: "We share many common characteristics and bonds between our two countries – family bonds – dynamic business communities – a drive for education – the words 'we the people' in our constitutions – and the dream that our children will do better – have the opportunity to do better – than us. (Read the full speech here. )

After which, the ambassador took a hand-held mic and walked out on the floor to take questions to the astonishment of his audience, who are used to seeing their politicians stay resolutely behind the podium before being escorted from the stage with a memento and a security detail.

 

[ajtr]

some good refernce:
Should Pakistan Get a Nuke Deal?

snippet of a comment under same article

History repeats itself...........
The History of US - Pakistan relations show that whenever the Americans gave aid to pakistan to further their own interests, the pakistanis mistook it as broad American support to Pakistan for their actions against India.Every American military aid that pakistan received was used against India although officially the americans said it was against communists (as they said in the 80s) and Islamists (like they are saying it now).But the Americans also knew that these weapons will be used against India.But in their bigger objective of defeating communism then or Islamism now, India is a small fry. Giving pakistan a nuclear deal to stop terrorism is like rewarding a snake by giving milk and expecting it wont bite afterwards. India got the deal because of its good behaviour.Now the suggestion is pakistan should get the deal because of its bad behaviour. For many years the Americans got miffed whenever the Indians talk about non-alignment between US and the Soveits.Now it is time for the Indians to tell the Americans that their owm Non-alignment between the Indians and pakistanis should stop.They have to choose on.They cannot hunt with the hound and run with the hare.The Americans needs to realise that this is a zero sum game and they have to choose one.
On its part, India should understand that if they want to tackle pakistan, they need to tackle America first.Without American support, pakistan is nothing (even after including the chinese and Saudi support). At this point of time India does not have any leverage against the Americans and they should develop one asap.
If you want to stop America coming to pakistan's rescue everytime, then
FIRST develop a ICBM that can hit America and then talk to the Americans.
SECOND, develop strong relations with Iran.An increased Indian-Iranian interactions will be helpful in Indian-American interactions.
THIRD Punish the American business who wants to do business with both India and pakistan.Lockheed martin and Boeing cannot sell weapons to pakistan and expect to be in the IAF tenders.
FOURTH, dont be shy to poke a finger in Uncle sam's eye, if the American's are not listening to you.Create a nuisance for the americans in the first place and then negotiate to reduce that nuisance without reducing it completely .The pakistanis have perfected this art like anything and this last tip is one of the few things which the Indians can learn from pakistanis.

 

[ajtr]

American Strategy games

In the area called generally the Middle East, but which we prefer to think of as the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush, there are three intrinsic regional balances. One is the Arab-Israeli balance of power. The second is the Iran-Iraq balance. The third is the Indo-Pakistani balance of power. The American goal in each balance is not so much stability as it is the mutual neutralization of local powers by other local powers.

Two of the three regional balances of power are collapsed or in jeopardy. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the failure to quickly put a strong, anti-Iranian government in place in Baghdad, has led to the collapse of the central balance of power — with little hope of resurrection. The eastern balance of power between Pakistan and India is also in danger of toppling. The Afghan war has caused profound stresses in Pakistan, and there are scenarios in which we can imagine Pakistan’s power dramatically weakening or even cracking. It is unclear how this will evolve, but what is clear is that it is not in the interest of the United States because it would destroy the native balance of power with India. The United States does not want to see India as the unchallenged power in the subcontinent any more than it wants to see Pakistan in that position. The United States needs a strong Pakistan to balance India, and its problem now is how to manage the Afghan war — a side issue strategically — without undermining the strategic interest of the United States, an Indo-Pakistani balance of power.

The western balance of power, Israel and the surrounding states, is relatively stable. What is most important to the United States at this point is that this balance of power also not destabilize. In this sense, Israel is an important strategic asset. But in the broader picture, where the United States is dealing with the collapse of the central balance of power and with the destabilization of the eastern balance of power, Washington does not want or need the destabilization of the western balance — between the Israelis and Arabs — at this time. U.S. “bandwidth” is already stretched to the limit. Washington does not need another problem. Nor does it need instability in this region complicating things in the other regions.

Note that the United States is interested in maintaining the balance of power. This means that the U.S. interest is in a stable set of relations, with no one power becoming excessively powerful and therefore unmanageable by the United States. Israel is already the dominant power in the region, and the degree to which Syria, Jordan and Egypt contain Israel is limited. Israel is moving from the position of an American ally maintaining a balance of power to a regional hegemon in its own right operating outside the framework of American interests.

 

[ajtr]

Obama kickstarts India's nuclear deal


By MK Bhadrakumar

The relationship between the United States and India, which lately showed signs of stress, was revamped on Monday with the announcement that the two countries have completed the "arrangements and procedures" for US-origin spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed in India.

A major stumbling block for the "operationalization" of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2008 by the US and India has been removed. It took tough negotiations to reach the accord. The US had previously given such reprocessing rights only to the European Atomic Energy Community and Japan. The timing is, unquestionably, political.

An agreement may be ready for signing as early as next month, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to Washington to attend the "nuclear summit" hosted by US President Barack Obama on April 12-13. This will give Manmohan's visit added significance.

US's special India ties
Without doubt, Obama is putting his personal stamp on the US-India strategic partnership. The announcement in Washington comes immediately after the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, where Pakistan made a strong pitch to secure a nuclear deal on par with India's. There the US side said that Pakistan needs to first have a good track record in non-proliferation.

Despite the hype in Islamabad over the strategic dialogue with the US, Delhi believes the Pakistanis got much less than what they had demanded and probably expected. The Pakistanis handed Washington an imposing 56-page dossier prepared under army chief General Pervez Kiani's personal supervision that was a long wish list of all the things that Islamabad expected Washington to provide it with.

Instead, the news regarding the nuclear reprocessing agreement with the US reaffirms India's special status in the US's regional policies.

In the short term, the India-US nuclear deal may mitigate some of the bitterness felt in India over Washington being less than forthcoming in providing the Indian intelligence services with access to interrogate David Coleman Headley, a key suspect in the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 and who is standing trial in the US. (See A spy unsettles US-India ties, Asia Times Online, March 22)

In the long term, the new agreement on reprocessing "will facilitate participation by US firms in India's rapidly expanding civil nuclear energy sector". Indeed, the commercial spin-off is going to be massive for the US nuclear industry, running into tens of billions of dollars.

The powerful business lobby in the US is, from Delhi's perspective, serving a useful purpose, especially when the US economy is desperately keen to secure export orders. The Indian establishment calculates that its trump card ultimately lies in the business opportunities that the rapidly growing Indian market can offer to the US business and industry, believing this could make Delhi into Washington's long-term partner in the region. The bi-partisan support in the US Congress for a strong relationship with India acknowledges this ground reality.

A sense of frustration was building up in Delhi that Obama might be reverting to "hyphenating" US's ties with India and Pakistan rather than separately developing each relationship on intrinsic merits, which was a fine legacy of the former president George W Bush-era.

The new agreement may ease the Indian angst for a coming stormy period of the next two to three years. At least for now, AfPak remains Obama's number one priority and Pakistan's role in it will remain central.

Besides, the new agreement only provides for India to reprocess US-origin spent fuel. It does not envisage transfer of US technology as such, whereas Delhi's persistent demand has been that the US's remaining restrictions on transfer of dual-use technology for India are anachronistic.

India's course correction
All the same, the political symbolism of the new agreement cannot be lost on the international community.

The recent signing of multi-billion dollar arms deals in the defense and nuclear fields between India and Russia on the sidelines of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to India would have driven home to the Obama administration that Delhi was reviving its strategic ties with Moscow with a long-term perspective.

Second, Obama is working hard to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime and in essence, he just underscored the US's acceptance of India's special status in any revamped nuclear non-proliferation architecture.

Third, the US is affirming its differentiated regard for India at a time when Sino-American ties are showing signs of strain. The US probably feels the need to galvanize its overall relationship with India as part of its Asian strategy. Interestingly, even as the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue was under way in the State Department in Washington, Capitol Hill was conducting a hearing where India figured.

Testifying before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, the commander-in-chief of the Hawaii-based Pacific Command, Admiral Robert F Willard, said, "Our nation's partnership with India is especially important to long-term South and Central Asia regional security and to US national interests in this vital sub-region."

He said India's leadership as the largest democracy in the world, its rising economic power and its influence across South Asia as well as its global influence attested to its pivotal role in shaping the regional security environment.

It cannot be lost on the Obama administration that Delhi is quietly rethinking its overall foreign policy orientation. Delhi deliberately harmonized its policies with the US's strategies and even put at risk its traditional ties of friendship with Tehran in deference to the US's containment policy toward Iran. There is a feeling in Delhi, on the other hand, that the US placed undue primacy on the AfPak cooperation with the Pakistani military.

Paradoxically, India is one of a handful of countries that has faith in Obama's AfPak strategy. Delhi wants the US surge to succeed. It sees no conflict of interests if the US military presence continues for the foreseeable future. Delhi is prepared to commit resources to be an optimal participant in the US's AfPak strategy.

No doubt, Delhi staunchly opposes the forces of extremism in Afghanistan. Most important, Delhi has steered clear of any regional initiatives that remotely smack of challenging the AfPak strategy. Yet, Delhi is intrigued that AfPak diplomacy under special representative Richard Holbrooke trampled on Indian sensitivities by its crass failure to distinguish the US's friends.

The AfPak diplomats do not seem to get the point that Delhi will do whatever it takes to safeguard its interests in a tough neighborhood and it has no choices in the matter.

Obama's realism
Under Obama's leadership, the US-India strategic partnership may already have lost its innocence. There is bound to be greater maturity on the Indian side in assessing the volatility of the international system, the growing trends of polycentrism, the rise of China and the need for India to avoid regional isolation. How this pans out will be engrossing to watch.

India faces multiple challenges - it must keep tensions under check in relations with Pakistan, sustain the momentum in Sino-Indian understanding, work for a stable and secure Afghanistan, repair the ties with Iran, encourage the transition processes in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and, generally speaking, work on a neighborhood policy that provides underpinning for India's impressive annual growth rate coasting toward 9%, so that it becomes sustainable through the next decade or two.

Obama's signal contribution to the US-India strategic partnership is that he may be imparting a balance, a sense of proportion to it. It is up to Delhi to seize the window of opportunity. Obama is not the sort of man to browbeat India or lay down rules of conduct. Nor is his passion for India in any way to be doubted.

Surely, any of the Bush-era rhetoric that the US and India would work shoulder to shoulder as two great democracies in a brave new world or that the Indian people "loved" Bush for endeavoring to make their country a "great power" will embarrass the policy makers today - both in Delhi and in Washington.

In sum, implementation of the nuclear deal becomes a turning point in the US-India partnership. With one stroke, Obama may have calmed the troubled waters of US-India partnership. It is a masterstroke in its timing.

The present Indian government faces no worthwhile opposition domestically to the advancement of its agenda of expanding and deepening the US-India strategic partnership. The majority opinion among the Indian elites also favors strong US-India ties. Most certainly, a tumultuous reception awaits Obama when he visits India.

 

[ajtr]

Obama focused on ties with India, Af-Pak



Washington: US President Barack Obama is spending considerable time on America's relationship with India, Afghanistan and Pakistan to strengten security in the "important region", the White House said on Tuesday.
"The President has spent considerable time on our relationships with India, Afghanistan and Pakistan to see security strengthened and our mutual goals worked on in an important region in the world," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily news conference.

Gibbs said Obama has been a proponent of the civilian nuclear agreement with New Delhi and had supported it in the US Senate when he was a Senator.
"He is glad that in an important region of the world, we're strengthening a very close bilateral relationship," Gibbs said.
Early this week, India and the United States announced they have completed negotiations on arrangements and procedures for reprocessing of the spent nuclear fuel.
"I think it's a reflection of the deepening of our relationship. We think that the 123 Agreement is in the interest of both the United States, India, and has broader impact as well," said Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley.
Noting that the US and India have a very significant and prized relationship, the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Ellen Tauscher, said: "We're very happy to see that this agreement is moving forward, and the reprocessing agreement is one piece of a very large 123 agreement, and we're happy to see that it's moved forward."
Starting July last year, a high-level team from both countries held several round of talks on the crucial aspect of the Indo-US 123 agreement, which gives New Delhi prior consent to reprocess.
The negotiations were held by a team of India's Department of Atomic Energy officials led by its director, strategic planning group, RB Grover, and the US delegation led by Richard Stratford, the non-proliferation and disarmament expert in State Department.
Crowley termed the development as "brilliant diplomacy" and said the State Department is satisfied that the agreement is moving forward.
Terming it as a "truly great news," Ron Somers president of the US-India Business Council, said the third-ever reprocessing arrangement negotiated by the US has now been successfully concluded. He termed India as a true partner in high technology cooperation for the long-future.
The US had previously granted similar rights only to the European consortium EURATOM and Japan.
"Together, both countries can now get on with the implementation of the US-India civil nuclear accord. As partners, we will shape the economic destiny of 21st Century," said, Somers, who played a key role in the US-Indian civilian nuclear deal.

 

[youngindian]

US has excellent military relationship with India: Pantagon

March 31, 2010 02:48 IST

The United States has an excellent military to military relationship with India [ Images ], the Pentagon [ Images ] said on Tuesday.

"We have very strong military-to-military relations with the Indian government, with the Indian military; have had them for some time," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said at a news briefing.

Morrell said Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently visited India when he reaffirmed the Obama [ Images ] administration's commitment to have strong working relationship with the Indian military.

"The secretary just visited India recently and reaffirmed our strong working relationship with Indian military, exploring new ways in which we can partner and exercise and do disaster-relief work, and sell weapons and other military hardware to the Indians," Morrell said.

At a Congressional hearing recently, Admiral Robert F Willard, Commander US Pacific Command had argued that the US must continue to strengthen its relationship with India.

"We must ensure the US-India relationship remains rooted in our extensive common interests of which the Afghanistan-Pakistan issue is only one," he said.

"I think that the India-US relationship right now is stronger than I've ever enjoyed. As you know, because of our history, we've only been truly engaging with India mil-to-mil for about the last half a dozen years; and yet it's been pretty profound how far that's come," Willard said in response to a question at the Congressional hearing.

He said America's relationship with India has grown significantly over the past five years as both countries work to overcome apprehensions formed during Cold War era, particularly with respect to defence cooperation.

Noting that resolution of the long-standing End User Monitoring issue removed a major obstacle to a more robust and sophisticated defense sales programme, Willard said that to date India has purchased Lockheed Martin C-130Js and Boeing P-8I aircraft; expressed their interest to acquire C-17s; and conducted flight tests of F-16s and F/A-18s (under consideration in the medium multi-mission role combat aircraft competition).

The recent increase in defense sales, which exceeded $ 2 billion in 2009, not only enhances US access to one of the largest defense markets in the world, but more importantly enables greater cooperation between our armed forces, he said.

"As our relationship develops, US Pacific Command remains mindful of the significance of India-Pakistan tensions, particularly as they relate to the broader security discussion and the management of geo-political challenges that span Combatant Commands (Pakistan resides within Central Commands AOR and India resides in the Pacific AOR)."

"We are keenly aware of the importance of a peaceful co-existence between these two nuclear-armed nations and stand ready to assist with this goal in conjunction with interagency partners," he said.


http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/mar/31/us-has-excellent-military-ties-with-india.htm

 

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India, US ties proposed against cyber terrorism

WASHINGTON: India has suggested close partnership with the US in cyber security, particularly against cyber terrorism, as the two countries take

their economic and technological collaboration to the next level.

Indian Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot made the suggestion in talks with senior officials at the White House and in the US Department of Commerce during a week long visit, Indian officials said on Tuesday.

Highlighting the mutual advantages of establishing close India-US collaboration in the area of cyber security, in particular against cyber terrorism, he also emphasised the need for bilateral initiatives to be specific, result-oriented and time-bound.

Healthcare and skill formation were among other ideas that came up in talks on how to take the India-US economic and technological collaboration to the next level, including through fostering joint innovation with broad-based benefits.

Among the officials who called on him were the newly appointed Under Secretary for International Trade Administration Francisco Sanchez, Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Senior Adviser for Innovation to the US Secretary of State Alec Ross.

In interactions with trade and industry bodies, pilot described the opportunities that India presented in the field of Communications and Information Technology, not only for services but also in manufacturing.

In exchanges with the members of the US India Business Council (USIBC), and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Tuesday, he spoke about the Indian government's commitment of the to use information technology as a platform for providing access to services to those who had not benefited so far.

Stressing the mutually beneficial nature of the bilateral economic relationship, Pilot pointed to the broadly balanced trade in services, the fast rate of growth of US exports to India and the rapid growth in Indian investments flowing into the United States.

He said that the two governments should work to provide an enabling environment in which goods, services and persons can move freely to utilize emerging opportunities from which both sides stand to gain.

Pilot who also visited New York and Philadelphia, met with senior executives from a number of US and Indian companies to discuss the potential for further collaboration between India and the US in the field of technology, particularly with regard to using Communications and Information Technology to promote inclusive growth.

 

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Reprioritising Defence Acquisitions

Amid reports of Pakistan pressurising the United States to give it an India-like nuclear deal and fulfil its wish list for modern armaments including the early release of the additional 18 F-16s and unspecified numbers of killer drones (Predator/Reaper) there is palpable disappointment and even anger in India about America’s South Asia policy. Hillary Clinton’s comments, “Pakistan is close to my heart and Pakistan’s struggles are my struggles”, and above all, “US acknowledges Pakistan’s role in promoting security in South Asia,” belie America’s earlier statements of it wanting to help India become a major power. Most Indians, of course, always knew that no country can make another a major power and that India would have to struggle hard if it wants to keep its head up in the world. Having said that it is time India began to take some real steps on the path of self-reliance or at least some autonomy in defence preparedness. It is not as if it can overnight reduce its current 70 per cent dependence on foreign suppliers, but if it gets its priorities right it can certainly do much better than in the past.

The famous description of the vested interests as the ‘military-industrial complex’ by former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower comes to mind when there is a chorus in the media and strategic community about the ‘urgent’ need of India’s military modernisation, forgetting that such an approach even when it is well meaning would not reduce India’s dependence on others. Twenty years from now we would once again be looking for another round of high-price arms purchases to keep up with the Joneses. In India too it appears to be the case of armed forces driving defence budgets rather than a cold calculation of the country’s desire for ‘adequate’ military capability and this is mainly because the national leadership has not laid down in clear terms the country’s defence strategy. Can anyone then blame the soldier if he prepares for the worst case scenario? A strategic defence review is long overdue. How else can one determine the exact number of tanks, guns, aircraft or ships that the country’s military needs?

The recent defence budget has allocated a whopping Rs. 60,000 crore (US$ 13.04 billion) for capital expenditure, of which nearly Rs. 25,251crore (US$ 5.48 billion) is for the air force, and about half that, Rs. 12,138 crore (US$ 2.63 billion), for the navy, and nearly two thirds, Rs. 17,255 crore (US$ 3.75 billion), for the army. By any reckoning these are huge sums of money to be spent in one year. Here, I must clarify that a sizeable portion of these amounts would go towards payments for earlier purchases and commitments as well as for other capital projects such as housing, construction of roads and the like.

Of the big ticket purchases on the anvil, the 126 MMRCA worth US$ 10 billion is decidedly the biggest, followed by the ten C-17 heavy lift transport worth US$ 2.4 billion and eight Boeing P8I LRMP (for the navy) worth US$ 2.1 billion. The Gorshkov worth, US$ 2.3 billion, will be another major purchase. There was also a proposal for the purchase of some six Airbus tanker aircraft, which has been rejected by the Ministry of Finance. The second of the three Phalcon AWACS has also been inducted recently. In addition, some 20 Tejas LCA fighters are on order from the HAL, and more Su-30 MKI continue to be inducted to fill the voids caused by the phasing out of older aircraft like the MiG-21 and MiG-23. The six Lockheed Martin C-130J worth US$ 962 million is not a mean buy either, but since these aircraft were contracted for earlier there is little one can do to change that decision. Further, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has also issued a Request for Proposal (RfP) for 75 basic trainers – the most urgent need of the day. It should be clear to even a lay person that the cost of aircraft and related equipment is astronomical and their life cycle costs are equally high and rising.

India’s leadership has categorically said that war is not an option to eliminate the ever rising threat of cross-border terrorism. Even punitive and surgical strikes have more or less been ruled out. For some time now, Indian and other strategic analysts have repeatedly been ruling out the possibility of a full scale conventional war in the region. In sum, while a high impact threat of conventional war has receded, that of a low impact threat of catastrophic terror attacks and border skirmishes loom high on the strategic horizon. At this time it is perhaps possible to make some bold suggestions to delay and, if possible, even rethink some of the proposed purchases.

Let us first take the case of the ten C-17, which the air force and, I suppose, the army too wants for strategic mobility. The IAF already has some 30 IL-76 heavy and 80 odd An-32 medium transports and will soon also have the six C-130J capable of operations from short runways at high altitude airfields in the mountains. In 1984 when these transports (IL-76 & An-32) began entering the service, the air force had only the antiquated An-12, C-119 Fairchild Packet and C-46/47 Dakota and sundry other aircraft. At that time the Indian commercial fleet consisted of a mere 35 or so Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Today that number is nearly 300 and it is possible to requisition most if not all of these to transport troops in an emergency. The emergency evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the First Gulf War in 1990 is a case in point when the IL-76 and commercial airliners were pressed into service. Why then do we need the additional C-17s in such a hurry?

With a steady if slow induction of the Su-30MKI and now the MiG-29K for the Navy and later the 20 Tejas LCA, the IAF should not be too badly off in the fighter department also. The 66 BAe Hawk AJT also have a limited strike capability and can be gainfully employed once air superiority is established. The proposed 126 MMRCA deal worth US$ 10 billion would translate roughly into each of these modern fighters costing a whopping US$ 80 million or Rs. 365 crore each, compared to around US$ 30 to 35 million for the Su-30MKI and perhaps even less for the Tejas. Some experts would immediately point out to the technology transfer that would accompany the purchase of the MMRCA, but one wonders if simply getting an advance Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar would make a difference between victory and defeat in a local, limited conventional war where numbers might prove more useful. The other and justifiably important reason for buying Western aircraft is that Russian technology is often dated and the maintenance problematic. But surely, after operating hundreds of Russian aircraft for nearly half a century, it should be possible to refine and fine tune their maintenance through even closer cooperation with the Russians for a fraction of the cost of new Western hi-tech equipment. This is not to suggest that India should not modernise its fighter fleet. The Fifth Generation PAK-FA and the gradually improving Tejas should at least meet some of these objectives.

The monies thus saved could well be invested into a joint venture with one or more Western Aviation Companies to manufacture a fighter, an intermediate and most importantly a basic trainer in India with suitable arrangements for exports. Given the right momentum and bold FDI policies, this type of project should be off the ground and running in less than a decade; the time it would in any case take to get all of the 126 MMRCA into the service. Similar arrangements are reportedly working in the joint development and manufacture project for various UAVs and Drones. We should also accelerate the pace of GTRE cooperation with an aero-engine manufacture to co-develop a series of turbofan engines as also others for use in cruise missiles. A clear signal that India is serious about building its indigenous capabilities and that it would not blindly spend large sums of money on mere imports would also go a long way in leveraging its larger foreign policy goals.

A recently unveiled project of Tata-Augusta Westland for the manufacture of AW-119 helicopters in India is yet another example of how bold and innovative thinking can put India on the world aviation map. Just as China has begun manufacturing large numbers of basic trainers of an American brand (Cessna), India too can do so. And once the country’s industrial capacity becomes more credible, orders would automatically follow both from home and abroad. As is well known, no defence industry can hope to build its reputation unless it satisfies the basic needs of its own defence services. HAL, DRDO and DPSUs have to go a long way to earn that trust. The defence forces, on the other hand, must also be ready to field equipment that is somewhat less than ‘top-of-the-line’. Perfection, as is said, is often the enemy of the good. Instead of solely depending on the Defence PSUs, India can also easily offer major industrial houses such as L&T, Mahindra, Tata and others that are already in the heavy vehicles field to design, develop and manufacture artillery guns, tanks and armoured vehicles by giving them major incentives.

It is often said that the nature of warfare is changing with sub-conventional and asymmetric threats coming to the fore. Some Western reports are already talking about utilising small, slow but capable and yet inexpensive turbo-prop powered machines for attacks on terror targets where an advanced and sophisticated fighter is extremely vulnerable and also less effective due to the high speeds at which it operates. The Super Tucano, Beechcraft AT-6B, T-6 Texan II, and the Air Tractor AT-802U all described in the March 3, 2010 issue of JDW are prime examples of this type and carry sizeable weapon loads. Some air power experts would object to sending such slow and vulnerable aircraft into a strong AD environment, but it should be relatively easy to launch a pair or two of SU-30MKI/MiG-29 variety of air superiority fighters to provide protection or ‘top cover’. Such operations would in all probability be confined to areas close to the border and hence the aircraft would be less vulnerable. The cheap turbo-prop can also double as a basic or intermediate trainer, both for civil and military use. The armament needed for such contingencies is Quick Reaction ‘Manpads’ or Man Portable Air Defence missiles like the US Stinger, anti-tank missiles, JDAM and SOW or Stand-off Weapons, small diameter bombs, Aerostat radars, UAV/UCAV which must be ordered in larger numbers so as to prepare our armed forces for instantaneous yet calibrated reaction to a future contingency. Simply focusing on fancy big-ticket items is not always the best way to use our scarce resources. You do not after all use a sledge hammer to swat a fly.

Coming back to the question of Pakistan military’s enhanced capabilities, the additional 18 F-16 fighters and a few Drones should not overly affect the conventional balance with India. In fact, India should get used to its Western neighbour getting its defence needs from the United States and China at a fraction of the cost of what India spends on its defence. In light of this, it becomes even more important for India to get the best value for money.

 

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US warns India, Pak against Iran

PTI | Washington/New York

With India still keen to join an ambitious gas pipeline project involving Iran and Pakistan, the US has warned all countries against engaging in transactions with Tehran at a time when sensitive talks are on to consider additional sanctions on it over its nuclear issue.

"Our concerns about the government of Iran are very well known. Given its current unwillingness to address its international obligations and international concerns about its nuclear programme, we don't think that this is the time for such transactions to be taking place with Iran," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake, said.

He was referring to the USD 7.5 billion gas pipeline deal signed last month between Pakistan and Iran, a project in which India has shown renewed interest.

 

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India should take note

Harinder Sekhon

Indians who fawn before America in the belief that democracy is a hard enough adhesive would do well to read the writing on the wall — China matters much more to Washington’s long-term interests

With the Cold War fading into oblivion, and globalisation increasingly redistributing power to the South and the East, Europe and the United States seem to be responding to this shift in very different ways. While the US is working to replace its briefly held global dominance with a network of partnerships that could ensure that it remains the “indispensable nation”, the Europeans are beginning to feel somewhat ignored and irrelevant to America since they are no longer perceived to be “useful”. Now, America is busy concluding new “friendships” around the world hoping these would help it on its path to economic recovery, apart from assisting in the global war on terror.

There could be some lessons for India in this. While the importance of the growing US-India relations cannot be undermined, India needs to calibrate its policies and responses to the superpower as it is increasingly engaged in our neighborhood since 2001. While both miss no opportunity to reaffirm the evolving global strategic partnership between them, there have been growing concerns about certain US policies and announcement regarding South Asia that have spread disquiet among Indian policy planners, especially the wooing of China and Pakistan by Washington.

Obama is largely considered to be the first American President with a primarily Pacific-orientation who sees relations with China as vital in the long term to keep the US economy afloat. That is undoubtedly going to be a very special relationship. While that is understandable, how the US leverages its presence in South Asia to ensure that it plays the role of an “honest broker” and realises that its long-term interest would be best served by not sacrificing Indian interests in turn. While India may seem peripheral to the immediate core American interests at the moment, it would be in our interest to not only aim at building this relationship at an exciting level but to simultaneously try and strengthen the not so exciting parts of the partnership in the field of education, economy and social sector, etc. Right now, with the US looking at a more vigorous reintegration with Asia, it feels that the Chinese are better equipped to help them get to their aim and objective in Asia rather than India because China is more firmly entrenched in Asia.

At the end of the day, the Americans are realistic; they see who is going to be in a position to help them achieve their objectives more easily and in the immediate future. I think that is how it is going to be there for a while. But the trust deficit vis-à-vis China will ultimately be our strong point.

An important group of British Members of Parliament declared last week that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US is over. These MPs, members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the British House of Commons, were speaking at the release of a major policy report, Global Security: US-UK Relations, 2009-10. Commenting on the topic, the committee members said, “The use of the phrase ‘the special relationship’ in its historical sense, to describe the totality of the ever-evolving UK-US relationship, is potentially misleading, and we recommend that its use should be avoided.” The committee in fact suggested the need for a more realistic assessment of US-UK relations in view of the changed global architecture since the end of WW II when this phrase was first coined by Sir Winston Churchill as the “special relationship” is not so special any more.

According to the Report, the need for scrutinising US-Britain relations became necessary after 9/11 given the extent to which Britain’s relationship with the US influenced British foreign policy since 2001. While the British government still describes the US as its “most important bilateral ally”, there are voices of dissent within the political establishment that view the British as too much of a “subservient poodle” to the US administration, especially under George W Bush in the days leading up to the US invasion of Iraq.

They feel that the UK has been unnecessarily embroiled in Afghanistan, in what is being increasingly viewed as ‘Obama’s war’ and not really a ‘war of necessity’.

Perceptions about Obama’s policies and Britain’s place in his global vision have radically transformed in the last one year. When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009 his ratings were the highest in Europe largely because he had declared that the ‘unipolar moment’ was irretrievably over and the world had definitely entered its ‘interdependent’ and ‘multipolar’ moment.

Consequently, in July 2008, more than 200,000 people had crowded the streets of Berlin to hear Obama speak as many were convinced that he might become the saviour and renewer of the trans-Atlantic alliance, a relationship that had been first badly soured, then traumatised, then finally more or less pragmatically patched together over the eight years of his predecessor’s tenure.

Obama’s political and domestic compulsions have ensured that no such thing has happened and while ties with America remain close, Britain is just one of many countries with important US links. While there was a special relationship when Winston Churchill coined the phrase in 1946, when it was used to describe the shared cultural, political and historic bonds that helped defeat Nazi Germany, and was further cemented by the fears of the impending Cold War, the trans-Atlantic bond was never the same after the 1956 Suez crisis.

 

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SUMMER CHILL: What will bring US and India together again?


With Obama obsessing over the American Af-Pak policy and India doing little to nudge itself back to the position of eminence it enjoyed during the gung-ho Bush days, the relationship between the two countries seems to be faltering. The nuclear bill is under a cloud, the debate on GM food is yet to be resolved, and it'll take a while before US varsities set up shop here. What will bring the world's two top democracies in sync again?

The irony is inescapable. The exit of Left parties from the ruling coalition should have cleared the way for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s US policy to fly. Instead, it’s floundering in rough political weather with not just opposition parties but sections of the Congress too creating pockets of turbulence for the government. In a country nourished by Cold War rhetoric for more than four decades, it’s easy enough to resurrect the anti-American bugbear. With the Obama administration increasingly pre-occupied with its Af-Pak policy and the Manmohan Singh government showing little inclination for better management of domestic political constituencies, Indo-US relations seem to be spluttering.

The slowdown has manifested itself quite clearly after the government shelved two foreign policy initiatives being pushed by the US. One was the resumption of the stalled Indo-Pak dialogue. The other was the passage of the nuclear liability bill without which the Indo-US nuclear deal cannot become operational. In both cases, domestic politics shackled the government as a united opposition attack spooked the Congress into distancing itself from the initiatives. Left out on a limb to fend for itself, the government was forced to abandon both moves, at least for the time being. In fact, it was conveyed to US assistant secretary of state Robert Blake during his recent India visit that it will take at least six months for the government to brace itself for another go at getting the nuclear liability bill passed in Parliament.

Those familiar with the ups and downs that have dogged Indo-US relationship over the decades believe that the chief reason for the current coolness is Washington’s perceived tilt towards Pakistan. Islamabad has become critical for the Obama administration’s Afghanistan campaign and re-emergence of the Pakistan factor in the Indo-US calculus has served to muddy the waters for the Manmohan Singh government. Ghosts from the past are again stalking the corridors of power where old suspicions and fears about the US continue to lurk in the shadows.

The BJP has seized on this recasting of the Indo-US-Pak triangle with gusto. Desperate to reclaim the nationalist plank it lost to the Congress in the aftermath of the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai, it is unabashedly playing opportunistic politics with the government’s US policy and has happily joined hands with the entire spectrum of opposition parties including the Left and the Samajwadi Party to bash the ruling establishment as “weak-kneed’’ and “bowing to US pressure’’.

Admitted BJP leader Arun Jaitley, “It is a 100 per cent opposition unifier. As soon as an impression goes around that the government is succumbing to the US, it loses credibility. Foreign policy and strategic issues that concern national security are things that unite us. The BJP would want to be natural leaders of the opposition.’’

“The opposition is having a field day attacking the government,’’ conceded Naresh Chandra, former ambassador to Washington who also serves as a sounding board for the government on its US policy. “They will obviously use every opportunity to make the government look weak. I don’t think it does India any good but it does hamper the government in making policy.’’

The opposition’s stridency on the government’s US and Pakistan policies is certainly creating ripples within the Congress. Although the party believes that the BJP is currently too weak and too ridden with internal problems to snatch back the nationalist plank, it is not taking any chances. It’s blowing hot and cold, publicly supportive of government moves but privately advising a go-slow on issues that are politically hot. The fate of the nuclear liability bill is a classic example of Congress play-safe tactics in the face of opposition criticism with two senior ministers, Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony, advocating caution till a political consensus is evolved so that charges of a “sellout’’ to commercial and US interests don’t stick. The hiccups with the US, particularly over Pakistan, are likely to hit other areas of the Indo-US relationship.

The defence relationship that burgeoned under the previous George Bush administration also seems to be spluttering with India more focused on trying to stop the US from selling arms and planes to Pakistan than in buying weapons systems from Washington. Cooperation in agriculture too has hit an obstacle after the recent controversy over BT brinjal and GM foods with environment minister Jairam Ramesh playing a leading role in putting up the roadblocks. Although education minister Kapil Sibal is keen to pave the way for US universities to invest in India, he is facing opposition from some of his cabinet colleagues. Left-leaning elements in the Congress that were silenced by the bulldozing of the Indo-US nuclear deal are suddenly showing their fangs. A Congress leader who did not want to be identified said, “There is an inherent conservatism in the Congress of not being able to make that leap of faith. We are not prepared to break with the past.’’

Agreeing that domestic politics impacts foreign policy to a great extent, former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra felt that the Indian government’s current problems were largely self-inflicted. The central problem, he said, is the lack of communication between the government and the opposition. He recalled how former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, then leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, on at least half-a-dozen occasions to get them on board on sensitive decisions like troop mobilisation along the Line of Control in 2002 after the terrorist attack on Parliament. “It’s for the government to realise it has to smoothen its way in Parliament and it can do so only through consultations with opposition parties,’’ Mishra said. “And they must happen at the political level, not through officials. It was silly of the government to send the national security advisor to talk to the BJP on the nuclear liability bill.’’ However, given the fractious nature of the Congress-BJP relationship, this is easier said than done. “Political parties will do what they have to do and the government must do what it has to do,’’ said Chandra. According to him, the best course for the Manmohan Singh government is to keep its head down and not try anything dramatic with the US at the moment. “The US is pre-occupied with its Afghanistan campaign for which it is heavily dependent on the Pakistan army. This has created a situation where India cannot be given the space it deserves. This is the ground reality. I believe the situation will change again. The day is not far when the US will be irritated by the huge demands Pakistan is making. We should be pragmatic,’’ he said.

 

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02 April 2010

Briefing by Assistant Secretary Robert Blake on Recent Travel
Blake answers question on visits to India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Belgium


FOREIGN PRESS CENTER BRIEFING WITH ROBERT BLAKE,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS
THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TOPIC: READOUT ON RECENT TRAVELS TO INDIA, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, AND BELGIUM
THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010, 1:00 EST

MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Welcome also to our colleagues at the New York Foreign Press Center. We’re very pleased to welcome Assistant Secretary Robert Blake back to the podium. He’s going to talk about his recent trip to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Brussels. He will start out with some opening comments and then take your questions.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be back here at the Foreign Press Center to see so many old friends here. As was just announced, I’ve just come back from a trip to – first to India, then to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally, to Brussels for some consultations with the EU. So let me just briefly run through each of those and I’d be glad to take any of your questions after that.

In India, I really had two purposes there. The first was to give a speech before the Asia Society, which was having its big annual conference in Delhi. And I was asked to speak on trade matters. The full text of my speech is on the South and Central Asian Affairs website, so you can look at it there.

But essentially, I talked a lot about the U.S.-India relationship and encouraged the Government of India to continue to open its economy because that will help to attract foreign investments and create jobs, and it’ll also help us to export more to our friends in India.

I also had a number of meetings with my various counterparts in the Ministry of External Affairs, most prominently the Joint Secretary who handles the Americas who is my counterpart with whom we coordinate the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue. But I also had meetings with those who handle Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Central Asia person as well, and those were good consultations.

As you all know, earlier this week, the United States and India announced an agreement on our reprocessing arrangement which we feel is a very important step forward in our civil nuclear process. You’ve heard me say many times that the Obama Administration is strongly committed to fulfilling the civil nuclear deal, and I think this is obviously a very clear sign of that. I’m glad to talk about that more if you’d like.

From India, I went off to Afghanistan. I had been hoping to go up to Kunduz to learn a little bit more about the Central Asia part of Afghanistan, since I also handle Central Asia and a lot of the logistical support for our troops in Afghanistan is made possible by our friends from Central Asia. Unfortunately, the weather was bad in Kunduz, so I wasn’t able to go up there. But I had a lot of good internal meetings with our folks at the Embassy there and also with the – all of the friends working at ISAF. So that was helpful for me.

In Pakistan, I was able to visit both Islamabad as well as our consulates in Karachi and Lahore – the first time that I’ve been able to visit Pakistan while I’ve been Assistant Secretary, and I must say it was a very useful and productive visit. I was able to have meetings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Pakistani military, with a lot of the provincial council officials, provincial – I should say – officials, and then a lot of meetings with civil society and the press.

And I basically conveyed to all of those groups two important messages. First, the importance that the United States attaches to broadening and deepening the partnership between the United States and Pakistan, as shown by our decision to initiate the Strategic Dialogue that was led by Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Qureshi that you’re all aware of, and as also shown by the significant new assistance that the United States is providing to Pakistan, as symbolized by the Kerry-Lugar legislation.

So I, in all of my stops, talked about how the energy support that the United States is providing to Pakistan, our efforts to help the Pakistani Government to extend health and education services to the people of Afghanistan, to overcome some of the really very important challenges that Pakistan is facing these days.

And my second message was that the United States hopes that India and Pakistan can improve relations between two friends of the United States. I reiterated our longstanding position that the pace, scope, and character of relations and the resumption of relations is up to the governments of India and Pakistan. But again, as a friend of both of those countries, we hope that they can make progress.

I told them that the United States had welcomed the talks that took place between the Foreign Secretaries in Delhi on February 25th and hoped that that progress could be sustained.

In Pakistan, I said that India is really seeking two things: First, the continued prosecution of the suspects who are already in custody for the Mumbai bombings that took place in November of 2008; and secondly, India would like to see progress to curtail cross-border infiltration that is taking place from Pakistan into India. And I reminded them that from 2004 to 2007, both of those countries made quite important progress in their bilateral relations and that that progress was made possible in part by the significant efforts that the Government of Pakistan made at that time to stop cross-border infiltration.

I thanked all of our interlocutors in Pakistan for the very important progress that Pakistan has made to date, first in its campaign in Swat and more recently in South Waziristan, and then the arrest of Taliban leaders that you have all seen. And I urged them to also take action against the Punjab-based groups such as LET because – not only because that’s important to India, but it’s important to the United States. LET has growing ambition and scope in its activities, as shown by the David Headley case, and so we think it’s very much in the interests of Pakistan as well to take action against the LET.

My other message on the Indo-Pak side was, particularly with the business communities, was to urge them to take advantage of the significant and thus far under-exploited opportunities for trade between India and Pakistan. Trade is only about – the volume of bilateral trade and the value of it is about $2.75 billion a year, officially. There is some trade that comes through Dubai and then elsewhere. But the larger point is that that is quite small for countries whose economies are really quite well developed and that such trade would provide significant employment opportunities not only for Pakistan but also for India. And that in itself would have, I think, a stabilizing impact. So that was another very important message throughout my visits.

So let me stop there and allow time for any of your questions on anything. Aziz – sorry.

MODERATOR: Just a reminder, please wait for the microphone on either side, and state your name and organization.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sorry, I’m not allowed to call. (Laughter.)

MODERATOR: Yes, you are. Absolutely.

QUESTION: Ambassador, good to see you. Aziz Haniffa with India Abroad and Rediff.com. Just about the time you landed coincided with the about-face by Headley and his pleading guilty. And I know it’s a law enforcement issue, but there’s a lot of concern and paranoia that a deal was struck and there is – Headley was sort of an intelligence guy and everything else. And there is now this clamor that Headley be made available in terms of questioning by Indian authorities and there has been some kind of – there have been some people who said yes, he will be made available. Ambassador Roemer made some comments which people were saying does this mean that he won’t be made available right now, et cetera. Could you speak to this issue and how you all at the State Department, even though it’s sort of a law enforcement issue, will try your best to make this person available? Because I’m sure there is a lot of people in India wanting to know what exactly the connections were in terms of the Mumbai bombings.

And a quick follow-up in terms of Nirupama Rao being here and saying there won’t be a resurrection of the Composite Dialogue unless the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan was eliminated, and the Pakistanis saying look here, we are victims of terrorism too and we are trying darn hard to stop it and we would like to get back to the table and talk.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Okay, let me take the first question first on Headley. And let me go back to the statement that Ambassador Roemer made in Delhi, I think last week sometime, in which he said that the United States is committed to full information sharing with the Government of India on this very, very important case. And we understand that there’s a lot of information that Mr. Headley has that is of great interest to India, particularly because he was scouting out some possible sites, and so obviously the Government of India has a great interest in anything to do with that. And we have a great interest in sharing as much information as we can on that.

So again, we are very much committed to full information sharing with the government on that. However, no decision has yet been made on the question of whether they will have direct access to David Headley. And the U.S. Department of Justice is working with the Government of India to discuss the modalities for such cooperation. But again, no decision has been made on that.

With respect to the foreign secretary’s statement, I mean, I think I’ve already addressed that in my opening remarks that the United States also believes it’s important for Pakistan to not allow any terrorist groups to use Pakistan as a base from which to attack India or any other country. And so I made that point not only publicly but privately with our friends in Pakistan.

Thanks.

MODERATOR: Let’s take two questions from here and then we’ll go to New York. Let’s go to APP.

QUESTION: Thank you, Assistant Secretary, for the opportunity. I am Ali Imram for Associated Press of Pakistan.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Nice to see you.

QUESTION: Thank you. You have said that U.S. has good relations with both Pakistan and India. Pakistan is facing an urgent issue, which is water shortage. And you said that U.S. is prepared to help and is already helping Pakistan on energy issues.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Right.

QUESTION: But at the same time, Pakistan is accusing India of stealing its share of water and the talks between the two countries this week remain inconclusive. And the media in Pakistan is portraying it as water terrorism on part of India because it’s a matter of life and death for Pakistani agriculture economy. So in what ways can the U.S. help both of its friends to address this issue so that the attention on Afghan stability and security is not distracted?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: This is a question that came up in virtually every single meeting I had in Pakistan, not only with civil society people, the press, and everywhere. And what I said to everybody there was that if Pakistan believes that India is violating the Indus Water Treaty, then Pakistan should avail itself of the opportunity to submit whatever grievances it has to the independent arbitration panel that has been set up by the Indus Water Treaty. As many of you know, both countries have appealed to that panel many times in the past, most recently with respect to the Baglihar dam. So this is a functioning mechanism that has worked well in the past. And so again, if there are serious issues that Pakistan believes need to be addressed, then that is the address to which it should make its claim.

I also said that it is our view that the real issue is that both India and Pakistan have rapidly expanding populations and rapidly expanding economies, and therefore, of course, water use is growing very rapidly in both of these countries. And so the real challenge is how to make better use, more efficient use, of the water that they now have. And in Pakistan, I think there’s a particular urgency to looking at the agricultural sector, which accounts for more than half of water usage. And there are a great many practices that are inefficient; for example, the practice of flood irrigation that, if modified, would make a significant difference to the amount of water that is used in Pakistan. So I think that’s the kind of thing that we are working with Pakistan on. One of the things that we’re doing now in Pakistan – I think it’s noteworthy – is we have a tube well initiative where we’re helping to make 10,000 tube wells more efficient by replacing the engines on them. And that’s just one of many. And that’s both an electricity but also a water issue. So I think that’s where the real focus should be is to try to figure out how to improve water storage, but also water management and water efficiency. And so I think our Embassy is looking at ways to do that with our friends in the Government of Pakistan.

MODERATOR: We’ll go to Chida.

QUESTION: Chidanand Rajghatta, Times of India. Secretary, you said the –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Oh, sorry – how are you?

QUESTION: I’m good, thanks. You said the United States is asking Pakistan to cease cross-border infiltration or terrorism, or however you want to phrase it. But right at the time the Pakistani team, high-level team was here talking to Washington, a banned terrorist organization holds a public meeting in Pakistan, quite openly, and it’s widely reported.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I’m sorry, which one are you referring to?

QUESTION: The Jama'at-ud Dawa and LET.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: (Inaudible) in particular?

QUESTION: That’s right. On March 23rd, right a day before the talks here. So it seems to me that either the United States doesn't have the leverage or it’s being poked in the eye. So – and there doesn't seem to be any effect of – any salutary effect of your warnings. I wanted to comment on that.

And secondly, when you were in Delhi, did you sense a growing anti-American mood in India? Because a lot of commentators have written very stringent commentary literally accusing U.S. of turning a blind eye to terrorism and a lot of commentaries related to the Headley case. And does it seem to you that the Obama Administration is kind of (inaudible) a goodwill which took almost a decade to sort of generate?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, let me take that second question first, which is I think I would disagree that there’s a strong, growing anti-American feeling. I mean, I didn’t – I certainly didn’t detect that at all, and I had a wide range of meetings in Delhi, including with civil society and think tanks and so forth. So that didn’t really come up. Nor did the counterterrorism. And on the contrary, we think that counterterrorism is a growing and important area of cooperation for the United States. The home minister, Mr. Chidambaram, had a very successful visit here last fall to Washington, not only for meetings with all of his – Secretary-level, that is, cabinet-level counterparts here in the United States, but then also a journey to New York to learn more about mega city policing and how a big city like New York, who coordinates all the different law enforcement and intelligence agencies both at the federal level and the local level, so that perhaps some lessons could be learned for big mega cities like Mumbai.

So we feel there’s a lot of very good, practical cooperation taking place. And the most recent example of that is the Headley case, where, again, we’ve been in very close touch at high levels on the Headley case. And I think our Indian friends would say the same.

Sorry, what was your first question? I’ve already forgotten.

QUESTION: About the Jama’at-ud meeting in Pakistan right on the eve of talks, and why the U.S. doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, I think we have already expressed our concerns and I’ve said just as much as now. And I guess I’d go back to what I said earlier, which is I think I’d dispute the premise of your question that nothing is happening. An enormous amount has happened on the part of the Government of Pakistan, as I said, first in Swat, then in South Waziristan, then with the most recent arrest of some of the senior Taliban leaders. So I think that one could argue there’s a lot of important progress that has been made. But as I said in my opening remarks, we think there also needs to be progress against these Punjab-based groups, many of which, by the way, are targeting Pakistan as well. Groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad have been responsible for attacks in Lahore. They are responsible for the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. So again, I think there should – there’s a compelling reason for the government to take action against those groups.

MODERATOR: We’ll go to New York. Go ahead, New York.

QUESTION: Ambassador Blake, Anirudh Bhattacharyya. I represent the Indian news organizations (inaudible) Hindustan Times. I have a couple of questions. First, of course, David Coleman Headley and the LET (inaudible). When you were in Pakistan, did you have any discussions about India wanting Hafiz Muhammad Saeed prosecuted for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai? Did that come up at all?

And secondly, given the plea bargain agreement –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Didn’t come up in my talks. But again, I’m only responsible for the India-Pakistan part of it.

What’s your second question?

QUESTION: Yeah, again, in the – it’s part of my first question. I’ll come to the second question. Again, in plea bargain agreement, there was supposed to be five or six handlers for David Coleman Headley from the LET and there have been multiple media reports that they were actually serving officers of the Pakistan army. What is your – do you have a comment on this critical issue?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: No, I don’t want to comment on that, because that might be part of continuing judicial proceedings. So I don’t want to comment on that particular aspect of it.

MODERATOR: Okay. We’ll go right here.

QUESTION: Thank you very much. I’m Iftikhar Hussain . I work for VOA Pashto to the border region service of Pakistan and Afghanistan. And my first question is the Karzai administration is reaching out to the insurgent groups in Afghanistan for reconciliation talks and they have invited a jirga. How the United States is seeing this development?

And the second question is –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let me just answer that first, because I can never remember the questions when you do that.

On the question of reconciliation, the United States believes that this should be a process that is led by the Afghans. And so this jirga that you referred to, I think, is going to mark an important step in that regard. But again, this is something that the Afghans themselves will lead, not the United States or any other country.

QUESTION: Okay. And President Karzai is coming to Washington. In the backdrop, what the United States is hearing from the Karzai administration to deal with the corruption issues, which is quite important for the credibility of his government but also for the benchmarks to be achieved till the withdrawal?

And secondly, how do you see the tribal areas operation by the Pakistan military and what actions are you expecting from Pakistan in the Punjab-based groups? Thank you very much.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sorry, what was the first part of the question. about --

QUESTION: Yeah, like what the United States is hearing from the Karzai administration to deal with the corruption.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, on the corruption issue, let me just say that President Obama made this important visit to Afghanistan last weekend, and corruption was a major focus of his talks, as he said to the press afterwards. So this remains an extremely important issue not only for us, but also for the Government of Afghanistan, as you said, because this is an important – one of the grievances that people have against the Government of Afghanistan. So if we’re really going to make a dent and make sure that the people of Afghanistan really support the government, it’s important that they – the Government of Afghanistan – address this concern and address our concern as well. So this remains a very high issue on our agenda.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: And the third one was?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: That’s why I don’t like multi-part questions. (Laughter.) I can never remember them.

QUESTION: How do you see the tribal areas operation which is now being conducted in Orakzai Agency? And what are you expecting from Pakistan, specific action in in Punjab – against Punjab-based groups?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, I don’t want to use the word “expecting.” I mean, this is up to – and the Government of Pakistan is a friend of ours and they will determine when to take action on these things. They’ve already taken a number of important steps, as I said. So they’ll make the decision about when to take these actions.

But I’d just reiterate that we think it’s in Pakistan’s own interest to take these actions. But it has to figure out where it needs to deploy its soldiers. They have to have – they have to keep a certain number of soldiers to hold what they’ve already gained in places like South Waziristan and Swat, and then figure out where next to take the fight to the militants in the border areas while maintaining those holds. So those are judgments that the Pakistani military will have to take.

MODERATOR: We’ll go here and then in the back.

QUESTION: You were in Afghanistan. President Karzai – Ravi Kharme of VOA. President Karzai recently has been trying to forge closer relations with Iran and China. Do you see – does it matter to America that they can also depend on those two countries regional (inaudible), or do you think it’s a genuine effort of Karzai to improve its regional image?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, I don’t want to speak for President Karzai. I mean, you’ll have to ask him what he’s – the motivation behind it. I think there’s certainly some – it’s understandable that he would want to consult with Iran. Iran is on the border. Iran has major equities in Afghanistan, particularly the quite serious drug flows that come through Iran and out, and there’s been, I gather, a quite significant drug abuse problem in Iran as a result. So I don’t think we read any particular message into the fact that he’s consulting with the Iranians.

The same with the Chinese. The Chinese have a significant stake in Afghanistan in the copper mine and elsewhere. They’re doing a lot of infrastructure and development there. So – and they also have concerns about whether the situation in Afghanistan were to deteriorate, whether it would have security implications for its own western border. So again, China has very important equities in Afghanistan and it certainly should be consulting very closely with the Government of Afghanistan.

MODERATOR: We’re going to go to Geo TV in the back and then we’ll come up here.

QUESTION: I’m Sami Abraham. I work for Geo TV of Pakistan.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Hi.

QUESTION: Pakistan has recently signed a contract with Iran about a gas pipeline.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Right.

QUESTION: So during your visit to Pakistan, did this issue come up in discussions?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: It came up in more – in the kind of public discussions that I had with civil society and people like that. And what I said was that, first of all, people have been talking about this pipeline for a long time. But I think there continue to be many challenges to actually building the pipeline. So nonetheless, we have encouraged our friends in the Government of Pakistan to try to seek alternatives. Our concerns about the Government of Iran are very well-known. And given its current unwillingness to address its international obligations and international concerns about its nuclear program, we don’t think that this is the time for such transactions to be taking place with Iran.

MODERATOR: Okay, the gentleman there.

QUESTION: Thank you. I’m Shaun Tandon. I’m with AFP.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Hi.

QUESTION: I just wanted to get back to Afghanistan --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sure.

QUESTION: -- with President Karzai. He made some relatively sharp remarks recently about the – what transpired in the election, talking about fraud and saying that fraud was actually the work of foreigners, specifically talking about the UN, the EU. Are those – is that an assessment that’s shared by you or shared by the U.S,. and do you think these comments are helpful, just a couple days after the President’s trip to Kabul?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sorry, I didn’t – I have to be clear. I’m not working directly on Afghanistan and Pakistan, so I’m not – I didn’t see those remarks. But – so I don’t – I’d prefer not to comment on something I didn’t see.

MODERATOR: Okay. Lalit.

QUESTION: Lalit Jha from Press Trust of India. I also write for Pajhwok Afghan News. Welcome back here.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Thank you.

QUESTION: Can you explain to us what’s your role in Afghanistan and Pakistan and what’s Ambassador Holbrooke’s role there, because there have been – isn’t it overlapping of – and I have two other questions –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: No, there’s no overlap, believe me. Ambassador Holbrooke is responsible for Afghanistan and Pakistan, period. I’m responsible for India. There is some overlap with respect to India-Pakistan relations, so on that we work very, very closely together and consult frequently.

On the Central Asia side, as I said, I’m responsible for all of our relations with the countries of Central Asia. We have made recent efforts to try to improve our relations across the board with all of the Central Asian countries. Part of that is to continue our very close and good cooperation with almost all of them on Afghanistan. All of them, of course, have a very important interest in stabilizing Afghanistan. And for that reason, many of them have been happy to work with the United States and other ISAF partners to facilitate the movement of various kinds of goods through what’s called the “northern distribution network” through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and some of the other countries into Afghanistan. So I’m primarily the one responsible for all of those arrangements and negotiating those.

QUESTION: And then, my second question is your trip to India and Pakistan was primarily, I believe, to how to build up relations between – relations between the two countries, and there’s no talks between the two countries without the issue of Kashmir. Did this – how prominent was it when it came to both India and New Delhi and Islamabad?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: It’s like water; Kashmir always comes up in everything. (Laughter.) So it’s very prominent. But again, that’s something that the two countries are going to have to work out. And I think, as I said earlier, both countries have made quite a lot of progress in the period between 2004 and 2007. So sometimes the premise of people’s question is that it’s impossible for India and Pakistan to make progress, and that’s simply not true. Both of your countries have made significant progress during that period. And in fact, there’s the blueprint for some sort of agreement on Kashmir if they choose to endorse that.

So – but again, I’d just go back to what I said earlier, that it’s really up to India and Pakistan to decide how to move forward on that.

MODERATOR: We’ll go to Dawn and then we’ll go to New York.

QUESTION: Hi, I’m Anwar Iqbal from Dawn newspaper.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: How are you? Nice to see you again.

QUESTION: Fine, thank you. Going back to the water issue, as you said, it is always present. So do you see any U.S. role at all in easing tension between India and Pakistan on this particular issue?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Again, we’re not going to get involved in bilateral issues related to water, because I think the World Bank is the best mechanism for that. But I do believe that, if asked, that the United States could help both sides with respect to water supply and, again, how to make better use of the existing water supply, how to make it more – more efficient use of it, how to increase water storage, rainwater harvesting – a lot of those kind of techniques. So that’s where we and other friends of both countries might be able to have a role.

MODERATOR: New York, go ahead, please.

QUESTION: Ambassador Blake, one more question. This is a question that was asked earlier about the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. You know, after three years, India has decided to start talking to Iran again about the pipeline and participating in the process. You and India just now – did you discuss this issue at all? Is it a disappointment that India is planning to go ahead with discussions on this issue?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I don’t really have anything more to say than what I already said, which is that we – this is a very sensitive time in negotiations with Iran and we would prefer that all countries not conduct such transactions with Iran at this time, for the reasons that I already outlined.

MODERATOR: We only have time for two more questions. We’ll go here and then here.

QUESTION: Narayan Lakshman from the Hindu. Nice to see you again.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: How are you?

QUESTION: First question on the upcoming discussion on nuclear liability. There is a sense that the U.S. and India may be heading for a bit of a clash there because India – the mood in India is not to agree to full compliance with CSC-type liability, particularly regarding equipment suppliers who would be liable for gross negligence. But I think the suppliers in the U.S. have kind of indicated already that that would not be acceptable. So do you see that getting – being a sticking point over there?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I don’t see that as a sticking point. I mean, in all of our conversations with the Indian Government, they have consistently said that they remain committed to fulfilling this commitment under the civil nuclear deal to pass civil liability legislation. As you say, I think the opposition in India has recently expressed its objections to aspects of that legislation, so it’ll be up to the Government of India to figure out how to move forward on this. But again, they’ve always said to us that they remain committed to moving that legislation.

QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up. What’s happening with progressing on the individuals who were indicted or charged for the Mumbai attacks? Is there any sense of progress with that? Did you speak at all about that in Pakistan?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I think there has been progress over time. I can’t say that there’s been any very recent progress. But again, I think the Government of Pakistan does remain committed to prosecuting these individuals. And the only point I made was just the importance of just continuing that process, because that’s an important confidence-building measure for the Indians – and for the United States, I might add, since there were six Americans killed in those attacks.

QUESTION: Andrey Surzhanskiy, ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: How are you?

QUESTION: Thank you for spending your time with us.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sure.

QUESTION: My question is non-related subject. The United States have recently announced the plans to build anti-terrorism training center – counterterrorism training center in Kyrgyzstan in the southern part of this country, and that raised some concerns in neighboring countries who saw it as a threat to their stability. And they are talking about – they say that the United States is building another military base in this region. And my question is this: What is this center for? Is it going to be a strictly training facility, or it will be transformed into something bigger at some point? Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let me just answer that very simply by saying we have very important counterterrorism cooperation with Kyrgyzstan and a number of other countries in that – in Central Asia, and we do not intend to build a base. We have temporary – an agreement with the Government of Kyrgyzstan regarding the use of the Manas transit center. We very much appreciate the Government of Kyrgyzstan’s support. But again, we do not have an intention of establishing long-term bases anywhere in Central Asia.

QUESTION: So it’s going to be just a –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Training.

QUESTION: Training center.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Exactly.

MODERATOR: Final question.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I’m afraid I have to only take one more question because I’ve got to run off to another meeting. But – sir.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Raghubir Goyal for India Globe and Asia Today.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Nice to see you.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. I guess you have done a great job answering all the questions already, but I have a simple two questions. One is that Ambassador Holbrooke –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sorry, you only get one question. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: One, okay. Two-part question. Ambassador Holbrooke made many trips to Pakistan and he had been talking to them about terrorism and the great job that Pakistan is doing. Then now you made the trip to India and Pakistan. My question is that India is now really Indians in India, and including the prime minister of India, they are now at the final stage that Pakistan must stop cross-border and terrorizing India.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Right.

QUESTION: And now they have no time. Second, and at the same time, Pakistan, if it’s a victim, they are the one who trained these people on their soil and they are still doing it and sending them across the border to India. So what was the really final action and reaction from Pakistan to you that now India, I think, will not wait?

And second, as far as this –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sorry, let me just answer that question. I mean, again, I don’t – I’m not sure I understand the premise of your question. I think I’d just go back to what I said earlier. We think that Pakistan has made very important progress in the fight on terrorism in all the areas that I outlined, but that there’s still some things that need to be done. And I think I already talked about that.

I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to be at the White House in ten minutes so --

QUESTION: A quick one –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: No, I can’t.

MODERATOR: We’re going to have to end. Thank you all for coming.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Thank you all so much. Nice to see you. Thanks a lot.



Read more: http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans...ommis0.5154186.html?CP.rss=true#ixzz0k6ua0YDm

 

[ajtr]

Monitor Pakistan's use of military aid, India tells US


Upset over the US' continuing supply of cutting-edge military hardware to Pakistan, India has asked it to set up a mechanism to ensure that American military aid was not diverted by Islamabad to target India.
"We are in regular touch with the Americans... they are aware and alert to our concerns," a well-placed source close to the government said when asked about the military aid promised to Pakistan at the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue held in Washington a week ago.
"We have told them that they need to develop a mechanism to monitor the assistance they are giving to Pakistan," the source said.
"India is sure that they (US) will keep this aspect in mind if they are sensitive to our security concerns."
India has raised the issue of the US military supplies to Pakistan at many levels and pointed out to them that the aid was being used to bolster anti-India military infrastructure, but Washington has gone ahead with it due to its strategic calculations and compulsions in Afghanistan.
In a sign of new comfort level between the two countries, the US briefed India on the March 24-25 US-Pakistan strategic talks. US National Security Advisor James Jones briefed his Indian counterpart Shivshankar Menon while Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was briefed by Under Secretary of State William Burns.
Downplaying the outcome of the Pakistan-US strategic dialogue, the sources said it was not a genuine strategic partnership, but "a relationship born out of necessity". "We see the glass quite clearly... it is a relationship born out of necessity in which Pakistan has to deliver a lot in terms of dealing with terrorism and the problems it faces," a source said.
The sources said India was not worried about the US agreeing to discuss a nuclear deal with Pakistan, but pointed out that it was virtually impossible given Islamabad's clandestine nuclear programme and its dubious proliferation record.
India has also rejected reports that suggested the US was not providing access to American-Pakistani David Coleman Headley, who has confessed to his role in plotting the Mumbai attacks. The two countries were in constant touch in the matter, the sources said.
Washington had assured New Delhi that it would answer every question and concern that India would raise with regard to Headley.

 

[ajtr]

America’s Wounded Ally

India is annoyed by Obama.

Barack Obama is in danger of reversing all the progress his predecessors, including George W. Bush, made in forging closer U.S. ties with India. Preoccupied with China and the Middle East, the Obama administration has allotted little room on its schedule for India, and failed to get much done in the short time it did make. Hosting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the November state visit, the administration managed to produce cordial photo ops, but the agreements reached on education, energy cooperation, and the like dealt with trivia. Indian diplomats close to Singh say the lackluster results show how far the relationship has fallen since Bill Clinton and the two Bushes transformed a strained Cold War rivalry into a close strategic partnership between the world's largest democracies. Obama's predecessors built a relationship around trade negotiations, joint military exercises, and ad hoc coalitions for humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of the Indonesia tsunami. Despite his reputation for uniquely pushy diplomacy, it was George W. Bush who concluded the landmark deal that recognized India as a legitimate nuclear power and opened the door to the sale of civilian nuclear technology to India. No single American move has done more to demonstrate Washington's respect for New Delhi as a rising and equal power. Now Obama, who came to office promising to respect U.S. allies, is backpedaling on that deal, to the growing chagrin of the Indians.

Obama appears largely oblivious to India's concerns. When the U.S. gathered its allies in the Afghan war at a London summit in January, Indian officials felt they were marginalized because their views were not sought or paid heed to in any fashion. They were even more annoyed by U.S. declarations of a "new dawn" in relations with India's old adversary, Pakistan, and the apparent trust American officials now place in Pakistan's willingness to fight the Taliban, both at home and in Afghanistan. Their feeling is that top Obama advisers, like national-security adviser James Jones and the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, have little experience in South Asia and have displayed remarkable naiveté in public statements. More than once, Jones has argued that reducing Indo-Pakistani tensions would allow Pakistan to redeploy forces from its Indian border to the fight against the Taliban along the Afghan border. This is utterly fatuous in the view of Indian officials, who believe Pakistan is still dallying with the terrorists who target Indian interests in Kashmir and who orchestrated the devastating 2008 attacks on Mumbai. Despite all this, India has renewed talks with Pakistan and moved military personnel away from the de facto border in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir; Pakistan has yet to reciprocate. As a result, some officials in New Delhi are livid about Jones's remarks. Holbrooke triggered a similar reaction in early March: after Afghan Taliban killed a number of Indian workers in Kabul, he blithely stated that the victims were not targeted on the basis of their nationality. Indian officials publicly dismissed Holbrooke's remarks as uninformed. Behind the scenes, they see his comments as part of a larger pattern of Obama administration insensitivity toward India.

India won't wait indefinitely for the White House to put the relationship back on track. Instead, it is cutting deals with nations that respect its significance. Russia, which had let old Soviet ties to India wither, is now dramatically renewing the connection. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently visited India and went home with multiple agreements, including deals on civilian nuclear energy and more than $1.5 billion worth of advanced naval aircraft. Obama's inattention is what makes Russia's advance possible.

It's hard to understand why Washington would continue to neglect such a valuable ally. India is a vast and growing market, a significant military player in South Asia, a growing force in global talks on climate change and nuclear nonproliferation. So instead of ignoring or publicly upbraiding India, Washington needs to find a way to avoid the acutely sensitive issue of Kashmir, while enhancing counterterrorism cooperation and actively seeking India's input into the larger discussion on Afghanistan. Doing so will help secure Washington's relationship with a nation that is too important to keep on the sidelines.

 

[ajtr]

U.S. Aims to Ease India-Pakistan Tension

President Barack Obama issued a secret directive in December to intensify American diplomacy aimed at easing tensions between India and Pakistan, asserting that without détente between the two rivals, the administration's efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer.

The directive concluded that India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on U.S. goals in the region, according to people familiar with its contents.(so this was the reason for aman ki asha joke on 01st of jan this year by TOI and the foreign sec level talks in feb.)

The U.S. has invested heavily in its own relations with Pakistan in recent months, agreeing to a $7.5 billion aid package and sending top military and diplomatic officials to Islamabad on repeated visits. The public embrace, which reached a high point last month in high-profile talks in Washington, reflects the Obama administration's belief that Pakistan must be convinced to change its strategic calculus and take a more assertive stance against militants based in its western tribal regions over the course of the next year in order to turn the tide in Afghanistan.

A debate continues within the administration over how hard to push India, which has long resisted outside intervention in the conflict with its neighbor. The Pentagon, in particular, has sought more pressure on New Delhi, according to U.S. and Indian officials. Current and former U.S. officials said the discussion in Washington over how to approach India has intensified as Pakistan ratchets up requests that the U.S. intercede in a series of continuing disputes.

Pakistan has long regarded Afghanistan as providing "strategic depth"—essentially, a buffer zone—in a potential conflict with India. Some U.S. officials believe Islamabad will remain reluctant to wholeheartedly fight the Islamic militants based on its Afghan border unless the sense of threat from India is reduced.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already taken the political risk of pursuing peace talks with Pakistan, but faces significant domestic opposition to any additional outreach without Pakistani moves to further clamp down on Islamic militants who have targeted India.

U.S. and Indian officials say the Obama administration has so far made few concrete demands of New Delhi. According to U.S. officials, the only specific request has been to discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeezed by India on two borders.

"This is an administration that's deeply divided about the wisdom of leaning on India to solve U.S. problems with Pakistan," said Ashley Tellis, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has discussed the issue with senior officials in the U.S. and India. "There are still important constituencies within the administration that have not given up hope that India represents the answer."

India has long resisted outside involvement in its differences with Pakistan, particularly over the disputed region of Kashmir. But, according to a U.S. government official, a 56-page dossier presented by the Pakistani government to the Obama administration ahead of high-level talks in Washington last month contained a litany of accusations against the Indian government, and suggestions the U.S. intercede on Pakistan's behalf.

The official said the document alleges that India has never accepted Pakistan's sovereignty as an independent state, and accuses India of diverting water from the Indus River and fomenting separatism in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signaled that Washington isn't interested in mediating on water issues, which are covered by a bilateral treaty.

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Obama's directive or on the debate within the administration over India policy. The directive to top foreign-policy and national-security officials was summarized in a memo written by National Security Adviser James Jones at the end of the White House's three-month review of Afghan war policy in December.

An Indian government official said the U.S.'s increasing attention to Pakistani concerns hasn't hurt bilateral relations overall. "Our relationship is mature—of course we have disagreements, but we're trying not to have knee-jerk reactions," the Indian official said.

According to U.S. and Indian officials, the Pentagon has emerged in internal Obama administration debates as an active lobbyist for more pressure on India, with some officials already informally pressing Indian officials to take Pakistan's concerns more seriously. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. government's prime interlocutor with the powerful head of the Pakistani army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, has been among the more vocal advocates of a greater Indian role, according to a U.S. military official, encouraging New Delhi to be more "transparent" about its activities along the countries' shared border and to cooperate more with Pakistan.

In interviews, U.S. military officials were circumspect about what specific moves they would like to see from New Delhi. But according to people who have discussed India policy with Pentagon officials, the ideas discussed in internal debates include reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border.

"They say, 'The Pakistanis have this perception and you have to deal with the perception'," said one foreign diplomat who has discussed India's role with Pentagon officials.

An Indian defense ministry spokesman said his country's army has already moved about 30,000 troops out of Kashmir in recent years.

The State Department has resisted such moves to pressure India, according to current and former U.S. officials, insisting they could backfire. These officials have argued that the most recent promising peace effort—secret reconciliation talks several years ago between Indian Prime Minster Singh and then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf—occurred without U.S. involvement.

A senior State Department official involved in Indo-Pakistani issues said Mr. Singh, in particular, has risked his political standing domestically by suggesting India would decouple talks on issues such as trade and travel from Indian demands that Pakistan act more aggressively against terrorist groups, particularly Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamist movement believed to have masterminded the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

"Our principal interest has always been to encourage the talks to resume, but we also understand where the Indians are coming from, which is that there has to be some progress on these bilateral counterterrorism" issues, said the official.

The official noted that recent arrests by Pakistani authorities of top members of the Afghan Taliban have come without any major progress on Indo-Pakistani talks, raising questions about the link between the two.

Separately, Pakistan has been more forcefully raising concerns about Indian activities in Afghanistan with the U.S. Senior Pakistani officials allege India is using its Afghan aid missions as a cover to support separatists in Baluchistan and the Pakistani Taliban, and say they have presented evidence of that to U.S. officials. Indian officials deny the accusations.

A Pakistani security official said his government also has pressed the U.S. about India's ties to the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Security Directorate, and argued that Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar are outposts for India's spy agency.

"Something has to be done to stop Afghanistan from being a jumping-off point for Indian intelligence," said the security official.

Indian officials said they have received no requests from the U.S. to scale back India's rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, and don't plan to change those initiatives."We're in Afghanistan to help the government; we don't do anything they aren't asking us to do," said an Indian official. India's engagement with Kabul is broad and deep, giving Afghan President Hamid Karzai an important diplomatic ally in the region. It has given Afghanistan more than $1.5 billion in aid, building roads and laying power lines, among other projects. India, with its own well-developed bureaucracy, trains about 700 Afghan civil servants a year in India.

The senior State Department official said the U.S. remains skeptical of Pakistani accusations about India in Afghanistan.

 

[ajtr]

What should Treasury secretary tell Indian officials?

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner departs for India on Sunday for his first visit to the country as a Cabinet member. A host of issues are at stake between the nations: two large democracies that have become important trading partners and strategic allies as well, with a common interest in stabilizing a volatile part of the world. India is a key emerging economy, with more than 1.1 billion people and a strong technology sector. The United States runs an annual trade deficit with India that has reached as much as $12 billion, but foreign direct investment between the two countries was about even last year, at roughly $11 billion each. India is a potentially important market for U.S. companies but retains significant restrictions on business ownership and the control of capital. It is also a possible partner with the United States in discussions over China's economic policies but has been hesitant to criticize its large and economically influential neighbor.

Treasury officials spoke in general terms this week about the issues that are likely to come up as Geithner launches what is being billed as the "U.S.-India economic and financial partnership."

What should the treasury secretary say to Indian officials during his two-day trip? Here are four opinions:

Arvind Subramanian, senior fellow, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development:

The Chinese are the competition -- don't forget it "The fact that the visit is taking place at all is important. This is the Obama administration's effort to elevate the relationship. India is not the economic powerhouse that China is, but this signals that India is getting there.

"For both sides it is important. For the U.S., one can detect a kind of frustration with China."

The India trip "is not necessarily a deliberate playing off, but it is good to have a balance. And for India, it does not want to be seen as playing second fiddle on everything to China."

Subramanian said the United States could find a natural partner in India if it wanted to build a coalition to encourage China to let its currency appreciate, a move that would make China's goods more expensive and help alter some of the trade imbalances around the world.

"In the developing world, there is huge overlap," among the types of goods produced, making countries such as India and China direct competitors and making the Chinese currency issue "a global, multilateral issue, not a U.S. issue alone. The Chinese have trapped the whole region.

My advice to Geithner is be skillful and try to tap this and convert it into something that affects the global economy." "India has articulated the need for $1 trillion in infrastructure buildout -- 20,000 kilometers of new roads, a dozen ports. They have 25 airports, which need to be upgraded, and they want to develop 25 new airports.

"This is a trillion-dollar opportunity for U.S. companies. India needs to be mindful that the competition for capital will be fierce in the near term and the years ahead. Indian policies need to be calibrated to attract its fair share.

"We have been slogging away for years for India to increase foreign ownership in its insurance sector from 26 percent to 49 percent. Insurance companies like to buy long-term debt, and this would enable them to create a long-term debt market -- and then you can start bond financing" of infrastructure projects.

Somers said that the council would like to see ownership rules lifted for the defense industry and banks as well and that "we'd like to see an opening in the retail sector. India's social safety network is the mom-and-pop shops that line the roadways, so we understand the sensitivity. But as much as 40 percent of some harvests spoil on the way to market.

"Liberalizing the retail sector would improve those inefficiencies."

Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council:

India-Pakistan trade could help calm the region

"Total trade between India and Pakistan is about $2 billion a year. A pittance. If you look at indirect trade that is run through Dubai, it is on the order of $3 billion. And there is another amount through Singapore, which is the long and wrong way to do trade. You trade most with your immediate neighbors. Before partition [Pakistan was created by the division of some provinces of western India in 1947], 70 percent of the areas that are now Pakistan and the adjoining areas of India were trading, and if you got back to that level, you'd be talking about $50 billion. India needs a lot of things that Pakistan produces and vice versa. India's biggest trading partners are the U.S. and China. Why shouldn't it be Pakistan? "This has security implications. A big hindrance to opening the border is terrorism and the attack on Mumbai. But the dividends would create large vested interest groups on both sides, and among the general population on both sides.

"At the political level, the Indians are extremely sensitive in any third-party involvement with Pakistan, so Geithner has to be aware of that. But in closed-door meetings, there could be some discussion of regional integration, and what really stands in the way of opening borders for businesses and crossborder investment."

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch:

We were wrong on financial deregulation -- you got it right

"The Indian government was prudent not to implement the extreme financial deregulation model adopted by the U.S. and not to lock in financial deregulation with its World Trade Organization commitments in the 1990s. Can India join us in leading a new WTO negotiating agenda that would reopen the policy space for countries to reregulate their financial system and lead to improved rules for trade expansion that benefit more people?"

"They are like a regulated free market. There are a lot of things now in the private sector that were until recently government run. But it is a mixed model -- they picked what they thought were the safeguards they wanted -- so they have capital controls, and there are all these things where the private sector is in control, but they are regulated."

With concern that more wide-open trade would displace subsistence farmers and add to the country's widespread poverty, "India has been a leader in how you get the benefits of trade but still have safeguards. They have safeguards on financial regulation and safeguards for small farmers. [To restart global trade talks] Obama needs a partner, and India is in a good position on finance and food to be part of it."

 

[youngindian]

India, US plan record 9 army drills

| Monday , April 5 , 2010 |


New Delhi, April 4: The Indian and US armies will have nine joint drills this year, a record of sorts even at a time both countries have been increasing the complexity and frequency of military exchanges.

Some of the drills planned for this year will be war games built around battle scenarios and the others briefing sessions on battlefield tactics.

A separate programme of exchanges for the air forces and the navies of the two countries is being discussed. With no other single country does the Indian military have as many exchanges as it does with the US.

“We have reached a historic threshold with our relationship between the two countries,” the commanding general of the US Army Pacific, Lt General Benjamin R. Mixon, said. “The operations we do together are reaching a complexity of the highest level.”

The top brass of the Indian Army and the US Army Pacific, Marine Forces Pacific and the Special Operations Command decided on the programme of the exercises for 2010-2011 at meetings of the executive steering group (ESG) of the two sides in the Indian Army’s western command headquarters in Chandimandir, near Chandigarh, last month.

Mixon led the US delegation. The Indian team was led by the director-general of military operations (DGMO), Lt General A.S. Sekhon.

Some of the drills will involve amphibious operations, meaning the US Marines, the Indian Navy and a brigade of the Indian Army will take part in landing operations from the sea.

The India-US ESG was set up in 1995 but meetings were suspended after the Indian nuclear tests in 1998. The relations were revived in 2002.

The ESG is one of the committees under the overarching India-US defence policy group (DPG).

“This forum provides senior leaders the opportunity to come together to chart out a programme of exchanges for the US and Indian armies,” a US Army Pacific statement quoting the commanding Mixon said.

In the Chandigarh conference, representatives of the two sides exchanged notes from their operations on the ground.

“It was good to glean information from the Indian Army officers about their immense experience with IED (improvised explosive devices) threats,” a statement quoting Colonel Ed Toy, director, IED Fusion Center, said.

Most US casualties in Iraq have been caused by IEDs. In Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army has been dealing with IEDs used by militants for more than 20 years now.

In the nine drills that have been planned, the types of forces to be involved will cover the mechanised infantry, IED detection and disposal squads, artillery, aviation and psychological operations.

Last year, the two armies held their largest joint exercise ever in Yudh Abhyas for which the US carried out the largest deployment of Stryker vehicles outside Iraq and Afghanistan.

The multi-role ground operations vehicles were shipped and flown to Babina, the Indian Army’s armoured corps range.


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100405/jsp/nation/story_12303357.jsp