Narendra Modi vis–à–vis USA

Hari Sud

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2012
Messages
3,701
Likes
8,331
Country flag
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

Once insulted, Modi should not apply again. His application was denied at the behest of Congress propaganda at home which the American Embassy in New Delhi got carried away. And General Musharraf and King of Jordan in US who lobbied against the Visa. They all won 2005.

Now let US come to Modi in Delhi and invite him officially.

Nixon went to China in 1972. He invited enemy Mao Tse Tung, who had killed 29,000 Americans and wounded 400,000 in Korea.

If Nixon can shake hands with Mao, then Obama can come to Delhi and shake hands with Modi when he becomes the Prime Minister in 2014.

Do nothing Mr. Modi, let US amend its own ways. There is one condition i.e. both Musharraf and King of Jordan be denied entry into US for lying.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

If Obama can shake hands with Raul Castro, he can to the same with Narendra Modi.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

[Correction ]My earlier posts cited House Rule 417. Here is a link to House Resolution 417. The original article in the Times should have cited H. Res 417

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hres417

Full text at

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hres417/text

113th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. RES. 417

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

November 18, 2013

Mr. Pitts (for himself, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Chabot, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Sires, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Moran, Mr. Huelskamp, Mr. Lewis, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Grijalva, and Mr. Polis) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

RESOLUTION

Praising India's rich religious diversity and commitment to tolerance and equality, and reaffirming the need to protect the rights and freedoms of religious minorities.

Whereas India is the world's largest democracy, with a constitution that protects the fundamental rights of all citizens, including the right of each citizen to profess, propagate, and practice his or her own religion;

Whereas India is the birthplace of several of the world's great religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism;

Whereas India and the United States enjoy a strong historic relationship and believe deeply in the causes of liberty, justice, and equality under the law;

Whereas India and the United States have rich multiethnic societies and share a commitment to the values of tolerance, pluralism, and religious diversity;

Whereas the population of India includes a Hindu majority, the third largest Muslim population in the world, a Christian population of more than 25,000,000, a Sikh population of more than 19,000,000, and dozens of other faiths;

Whereas contrary to the tolerant and pluralistic traditions of the Hindu faith, strands of the Hindu nationalist movement have advanced a divisive and violent agenda that has harmed the social fabric of India;

Whereas on December 6, 1992, a large mob destroyed the historic 16th-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, which was located on a site claimed to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama;

Whereas according to the Congressional Research Service, "ensuing communal riots left many hundreds dead in cities across India" and "Mumbai was especially hard hit as the site of coordinated 1993 terrorist bombings believed to have been a retaliatory strike by Muslims";

Whereas on February 27, 2002, in the city of Godhra in the western state of Gujarat, India, 58 Hindus were burnt alive in a train coach fire, and communal violence erupted in several Gujarati cities;

Whereas in the International Religious Freedom Report of 2003, the United States Department of State found that "In Gujarat the worst religious violence directed against Muslims by Hindus took place in February and March 2002, leaving an estimated 2,000 dead and 100,000 displaced into refugee camps "¦ Christians were also victims in Gujarat, and many churches were destroyed";

Whereas the Indian magazine Tehelka reported that many of the people who participated in the violence said it was possible only because of the connivance of the state police and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi;

Whereas the United States Government denied Minister Modi a visa to the United States in 2005 on the grounds of egregious religious freedom violations under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the first and only time such a denial has been issued;

Whereas 10 years after the violence took place, Human Rights Watch reported on February 24, 2012, that "Modi has acted against whistleblowers while making no effort to prosecute those responsible for the anti-Muslim violence "¦ Where justice has been delivered in Gujarat, it has been in spite of the state government, not because of it.";

Whereas 10 years after the violence took place, Amnesty International reported on February 29, 2012, that at least 21,000 survivors and relatives of the victims remained in 19 transit relief camps;

Whereas violence broke out between Christians and Hindus in the eastern state of Odisha in December 2007, with significant rioting and looting of shops and churches and more than 1,000 people displaced from their homes;

Whereas the August 2008 murder of a prominent Hindu leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Odisha sparked a violent campaign against Christians, although Maoist extremists claimed responsibility for the assassination;

Whereas the United States Department of State reported that 40 people were killed, 134 were injured, churches and homes were destroyed, and more than 10,000 people fled the state;

Whereas the Associated Press reported at the time that the violence provided "a window into India's hidden fragility, its sometimes dangerous political climate, and the fierce historical divisions buried in its vast diversity";

Whereas according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), there was no immediate police or state government reaction to the Odisha violence, and religious leaders and aid agencies were denied access to provide care for the victims;

Whereas the National Solidarity Forum, an independent Indian tribunal of former judges, journalists, and political analysts, concluded in 2010 that institutional bias on the part of the Odisha state government, its police, and judicial system, led to a lack of justice and accountability;

Whereas the All India Christian Council, an Indian nongovernmental organization, reported in 2012 that state police documented an estimated 3,500 complaints related to the 2007 to 2008 Odisha violence, but only 827 cases were registered with local or state court structures;

Whereas USCIRF found that the investigative and court structures the Government of India created in response to the communal violence in Gujarat and Odisha failed to end intimidation, harassment, and violence against religious minorities;

Whereas according to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion Public Life, India falls into a "high" category for government restrictions on religion and a "very high" category for religious social hostilities;

Whereas nongovernmental organizations and Christian, Muslim, and Sikh communities reported an increase in religiously motivated harassment and violence over the last 2 years, and expect it to increase in advance of the 2014 general elections;

Whereas on August 27, 2013, communal violence erupted in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, with more than 60 Muslims and Hindus killed, 50,000 people displaced, and thousands remaining in relief camps 2 months later;

Whereas on September 18, 2013, a local court in Muzaffarnagar issued arrest warrants against 16 politicians and community leaders, including Bahujan Samaj Party parliamentarian Qadir Rana and Bharatiya Janata Party Legislative Assembly members Sangeet Som and Bhartendu Singh for inciting the violence;

Whereas several states have "Freedom-of-Religion Laws", commonly referred to as anticonversion laws, that purport to ban forced conversions but actually are used to prevent certain religious groups from peacefully persuading others to change their religion; and

Whereas USCIRF found in its 2013 Annual Report that "states with these laws have higher incidents of intimidation, harassment and violence against religious minorities, particularly Christians, than states that do not.": Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives—
(1)

recognizes the suffering of all Indian citizens who have been victims of religious violence, including the victims of all faiths from the 1992 Babri Mosque riots, the 2002 Gujarat riots, the 2008 Odisha riots, and violence that is ongoing today;
(2)

calls for religious freedom and related human rights to be included in the United States–India Strategic Dialogue, and for these issues to be raised directly with federal and state Indian Government officials when appropriate;
(3)

shares the opinion of the United States Department of State and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that the Gujarat government has not adequately pursued justice for the victims of the 2002 violence and remains concerned by reports from journalists and human rights groups about the complicity of local officials in the 2002 violence;
(4)

commends the United States Government for exercising its authority in 2005 under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to deny a United States visa to Narendra Modi on the grounds of religious freedom violations, and encourages it to review the applications of any individuals implicated in religious freedom violations under the same standard;
(5)

commends the role of India's National Human Rights Commission and the Indian Supreme Court, which has led to some convictions in Gujarat riot cases and the arrest of a few high-level leaders in the Gujarati administration;
(6)

urges India to increase training on human rights and religious freedom standards and practices for police and the judiciary, particularly in states with a history or likelihood of communal violence;
(7)

calls on Gujarat and other Indian states with anti-conversion laws to repeal such legislation and ensure freedom to practice, propagate, and profess ones' religion as enshrined in the Indian constitution;
(8)

urges the Government of India to empower the National Commission on Minorities with enforcement mechanisms, such as the ability to conduct trials and hear appeals;
(9)

encourages the establishment of an impartial body of interfaith religious leaders, human rights advocates, legal experts, and government officials to discuss and recommend actions to promote religious tolerance and understanding; and
(10)

urges all political parties and religious organizations to publicly oppose the exploitation of religious differences and denounce harassment and violence against religious minorities, especially in the run-up to India's general elections in 2014.
Maybe DFI comments in this thread can be more informed after reading the full text of the resolution.
 

dhananjay1

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2013
Messages
3,291
Likes
5,544
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

Kejriwal is a kindergartner at being self-righteous, compared to people who former this resolution 417.
 

cloud

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Messages
152
Likes
67
Country flag
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAppIOqfl2s

The above video is of Mr Modi's biography, yesterday it showed 48.5k+ views, now its shows only 45k+ views.. One thing that is for certain that it could not be less then 50k views from any stretch of imagination given the popularity of Mr Modi and the video is uploaded last year. But someone somewhere is still trying to do whatever they can keep the Mr Modi's profiles low in media. Can someone from BJP track this(keeping screen shots) and file a suite against you-tube(offcourse an American company) of messing with India's politics. :) Seems to me that the clock automatically resets to 40k or 45k once it reaches above 50k+..
 
Last edited:

ninja85

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
830
Likes
353
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

If Obama can shake hands with Raul Castro, he can to the same with Narendra Modi.
modi is not a villain as shown by corrupt congress party.
 

pmaitra

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
33,262
Likes
19,593
Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

Time magazine sees Narendra Modi as 'America's other India problem'

WASHINGTON: After the "nasty spat" between India and US over an Indian diplomat, the emergence of Narendra Modi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate, may cause even more tension between them, according to Time magazine.

Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, whom US authorities charged with visa fraud involving her maid, has returned to India after being granted diplomatic immunity, the influential magazine noted in its upcoming Jan 27 issue.

"But don't expect the relationship to rebound quickly," Michael Crowley wrote suggesting "In fact, the atmosphere could soon become even more tense - over a far more prominent Indian also embroiled in a visa controversy."

Suggesting that BJP "holds the edge" in the upcoming general election by May, he said that "If the BJP prevails, Modi will be India's next Prime Minister.

"Yet he is persona non grata in the US," he noted "because of his alleged role in a horrific episode of sectarian violence in February 2002."

"Modi's critics say he condoned or even encouraged the violence - accusations he stoutly denies and for which no Indian court has found him responsible," Time noted.

In 2005, the State Department revoked Modi's visa under an American law that bars a foreign official who "was responsible for or directly carried out ... particularly severe violations of religious freedom," Crowley recalled

"When Modi had no national profile, the restriction was inconsequential. But can Washington blacklist the leader of India?" he asked.

US policymakers are divided, he noted. "A resolution introduced in November in the US Congress calls on the State Department to continue denying Modi entry. It has attracted 43 congressional co-sponsors, including two Muslims."

"Realists, and US business leaders wishing to capitalise on Modi's openness to foreign investment, say his character should only be a footnote to Washington's wider relations with New Delhi," Crowley wrote.

"Should Modi win, the Obama administration will be pressured by many at home and abroad to condemn his past and prevent him from visiting the US. But (President Barack) Obama has tended to subordinate principle to the national interest," he suggested.

Noting that "Over the years, the US has done business with plenty of unsavoury leaders, in countries far less friendly than India," Time said, "By revoking Modi's visa, the US government has made clear its view of him and the Gujarat rampage."

"But Washington's ties with New Delhi are too important to be confined through that prism if Modi becomes PM," it said, suggesting "Both countries need to step forward and not allow Modi's past to push them back."
Source: Time magazine sees Narendra Modi as 'America's other India problem' - The Times of India

[HR][/HR]

It's ok for the US to continue to do business with the Saudi tyrants, but when it comes to Modi, they have to resort to pontificating. Let them hang onto their "persona non grata" license plate. Modi should not give even a passing glance.
 

anoop_mig25

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
5,804
Likes
3,151
Country flag
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

Time magazine sees Narendra Modi as 'America's other India problem'



Source: Time magazine sees Narendra Modi as 'America's other India problem' - The Times of India

[HR][/HR]

It's ok for the US to continue to do business with the Saudi tyrants, but when it comes to Modi, they have to resort to pontificating. Let them hang onto their "persona non grata" license plate. Modi should not give even a passing glance.

Nahhh sort of this would happen as both administartion would kiss and make up
 

Free Karma

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Messages
2,372
Likes
2,600
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

I really dont get this deep seated hatred for Modi from the U.S side. I've heard many theories about why they might hate him, but still dont get it, the more they describe him as a "problem" and so on, the worse it gets for them, and it doesnt do their reputation any good either(not like they have a good one to begin with in most places).
 

Shredder

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
Messages
685
Likes
1,856
Country flag
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

^ US wants India to be under stooges and anti-nationals like congress. They don't want an assertive India under Namo.
 

dhananjay1

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2013
Messages
3,291
Likes
5,544
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

It's ok if US goes around the world killing thousands of Muslims but Modi is "sectarian". :rofl: It would be better if they stop pretending that they give a damn about Muslims or Indians. They just want little obedient coolies.
 

ninja85

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
830
Likes
353
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

^ US wants India to be under stooges and anti-nationals like congress. They don't want an assertive India under Namo.
US never tolerates any nationalist of any country,especially when if he is neglecting US interests and benefits for the welfare of his country.
 

desicanuk

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2011
Messages
527
Likes
686
Re: Time Magazine: Narendra Modi - 'America's other India problem'

I really dont get this deep seated hatred for Modi from the U.S side. I've heard many theories about why they might hate him, but still dont get it, the more they describe him as a "problem" and so on, the worse it gets for them, and it doesnt do their reputation any good either(not like they have a good one to begin with in most places).
Its the US left ,US based lefty secularist NRIs and muslim NRIs who are really behind this anti NaMo stance in US.Similar situation in UK as well.
I cant wait to see a full 180 degree about turn by these hypocrites when NaMo takes over!!
 

ladder

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
7,255
Likes
12,207
Country flag
Re: US gears up for life after UPA eclipse, rethink on Modi visa issue

U.S. Ambassador to India to meet Modi

U.S. Ambassador to India Nancy Powell plans to meet Narendra Modi, signalling a shift in America's stand towards the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in connection with 2002 Gujarat riots.

"We can confirm the appointment (between Mr. Modi and Ms. Powell)," a State Department spokesperson told PTI. The request to meet Mr. Modi has been made by Ms. Powell herself, but the spokesperson did not comment on the possible date of the meeting, which is expected to take place in Ahmedabad this month.

"This is part of our concerted outreach to senior political and business leaders which began in November to highlight the U.S.-India relationship," the spokesperson said.

The go ahead, just before the announcement of general elections in a few weeks from now, seems to have been taken after intensive debate within the various wings of the Obama Administration — the White House and the State Department in particular — with crucial inputs from the members of the Congress, and the influential leaders of the corporate sector, the U.S. India Business Council in particular.

In the past few weeks, a series of public meetings organised by the influential think tanks here have had concluded that the BJP-led by Modi was currently headed to win the upcoming general elections.

The Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP)-U.S. president Chandrakant Patel welcomed the decision taken by the Obama Administration in this regard.

"We highly appreciate the decision taken by U.S. President Barack Obama, and Secretary of State John Kerry. This would further help in strengthening of Indo-U.S. relationship," Mr. Patel said.

"Modi is the most popular leader of the country right now. Given that he has been given clean shit by all the courts in India, it was not fair on the part of the U.S. to not to have relationship with Modi," Mr. Patel said.

In 2005, the U.S. State Department had revoked a visa that Mr. Modi had for travelling to the U.S. in the wake of the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

Keywords: Nancy Powell, Narendra Modi, India-U.S. relations, BJP, 2002 Gujarat riots
U.S. Ambassador to India to meet Modi - The Hindu
 

ladder

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
7,255
Likes
12,207
Country flag
Modi's conquest of America: Why the Powell meet is moot
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/m...t-is-moot-1383739.html?utm_source=ref_article

Wake up and smell the coffee. Or in this case it should be the chai. The report that American ambassador Nancy Powell has sought a meeting with Narendra Modi is just the latest sign that Washington is acknowledging to the ground realities in India. In 2005 when the State Department had denied Modi a visa, then US ambassador to India, David Mulford had said "This decision applies to Mr. Narendra Modi only. It is based on the fact that, as head of the state government in Gujarat between February 2002 and May 2002, he was responsible for the performance of state institutions at that time." At that time Mulford also took pains to point out America's deep appreciation and high respect for the Vajpayee government in New Delhi and "the many successful Gujaratis who live and work in the United States and the thousands who are issued visas to the United States each month." Nancy Powell. Reuters Nancy Powell's boss is the Secretary of State and it is the State Department that has routinely denied the visa to Modi year after year in Washington D.C. @scotchism quips in a firmly tongue-in-cheek tweet "As Vivekananda said – "If a man can't go to Amreeka, Amreeka must come to his doorstep." Though Powell isn't visiting Modi visa-in-hand, it is an embarrassing U-turn for her office. But it's also an inevitable U-turn. In 2005, as Zahir Janmohamed points out in his detailed piece for India Ink about how the visa ban came about there was little organized opposition to the visa denial in 2005. Evangelical Christians were at the forefront of the opposition to Modi and Indian-Americans who were aghast at what happened in Gujarat in 2002 teamed up with them to push that ban through. Since then that evangelical opposition has faded and three Republican members of Congress visited Gujarat in March 2013. Since 2005, court cases against Modi have come to naught. Joseph Grieboski, founder of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, who was part of the no-to-Modi campaign also admitted to India Ink that no one really knew who Modi was in the US at that time. "When the U.S. denied Mr. Modi a visa in 2005, it was like the U.S. denying a visa to the governor of Iowa — no offense to Gujarat," he said. "The U.S. did not see it as a big deal. And back then, it seemed clear to everyone in this town that Modi was involved in the riots. Now the picture is fuzzier, and many are intrigued by Modi." Now Modi is the declared prime ministerial candidate of India's main opposition party. There was really no doubt about whether the US would have to reconsider its visa ban. The only question was when and how. In fact, had Modi himself applied to go to the US in recent years, the US would have been forced to confront the issue head-on then. But he did not. "Modi has not applied for US visa since 2005. My personal advice also has been that he should not apply for a US visa," Arun Jaitley said in 2013. It suited Modi's image to have the ban in place, playing neatly into a victimhood script. If he received a visa, he was just another Indian chief minister addressing a group like hotel and motel owners in a cavernous conference room in some hotel in Georgia or Texas. But it was more newsworthy and dramatic to be addressing NRIs in America via video conference, in a sort of hologrammic defiance of the ban, helping burnish the Modi-against-the-world image. So Modi never applied and the visa ban was renewed as if on auto-pilot with State Department officials saying "he is welcome to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant." The US obviously has little moral high ground for the ban no matter what happened in 2002. Its record, as is always the case with realpolitik, has been selective. It has invited plenty of proven despots and mass murderers to the United States and given them grand receptions. As the Times of India points out, Barack Obama just invited his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta to a US-Africa summit in August although he has actually been charged by the International Criminal Court over violence after the 2007-08 election. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, one of the United States' closest allies, is hardly the poster boy of any International Religious Freedom Act. Now with the Indian elections coming up, the ban is really moot. Narendra Modi is not Devyani Khobragade. Not even Modi's most fervent opponents believe that the US can afford to shut the door on him if he became India's Prime Minister. It would not be about Narendra Modi any more. It would be about the Indian Prime Minister. In 2005, David Mulford had tried to wriggle out of the situation by resorting to convenient legalese. Modi, he explained, was denied a diplomatic visa to visit the United States because his coming to America to address the Asian American Hotel Owners Association was not a "purpose that qualified for a diplomatic visa." What the State Department had denied him under Section 212 (a) (2) (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was a tourist or business visa. But of course the Prime Minister of India needs neither a tourist nor business visa to go to the United States on a state visit. And given that the US will roll out the red carpet for the next Indian Prime Minister, Modi, should he ascend to that post, can savour it as his great conquering hero moment. Actually Nancy Powell reaching out to meet the man who might be India's next Prime Minister is not news. What would really make news, and a statement, is if Narendra Modi snubbed Powell now and said "Thanks, but no thanks."

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/m...t-is-moot-1383739.html?utm_source=ref_article
 

Voldemort

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2013
Messages
1,102
Likes
727
Country flag
US 'eager' to engage with Modi

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry look forward to engaging with the new BJP government at the earliest, including welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, a senior US administration official reiterated on Thursday, implicitly acknowledging that the massive mandate the Indian electorate has given to the putative PM has effectively overturned the visa ban Washington had imposed on him.
"We recognize the Indian electorate has weighed in with a resounding mandate for Prime Minister Modi and we want to work with him for advancing his goals for India as a regional and global player," Nisha Desai Biswal, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Central Asia and the administration's pointperson for the region, told correspondents while reviewing the latest developments in India.
"The President stated definitely that we will be welcoming Prime Minister Modi. We, like rest of the world, have seen a remarkable election and a remarkable transition...the mandate the Indian electorate put forward is one that we strongly support and we stand ready to engage and assist when the new government is ready," Desai-Biswal said in a chastened elaboration of a swift turnaround in Washington DC, where Modi has been persona non grata for almost a decade for his alleged inaction or complicity in not containing the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
That episode has now been put on the backburner in the US capital, where administration officials, lawmakers, and policy wonks are broadly pushing for quickly re-engaging with the BJP- and Modi-led India after a winter of discontent during the tail-end of the UPA government. The changed mood was most evident at an event organized by the US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) on Capitol Hill where some lawmakers extolled Modi's virtues and harked back to the NDA government's previous stint, consigning the ten-year UPA-Congress engagement to the archives.
But the clearest sign that the Obama administration, specifically the President himself, has hit the ctrl alt delete button, and wants to reset ties with a Modi-led India, came from Desai-Biswal, who also happens to be a first generation immigrant from Gujarat (her parents emigrated from Dahod in Gujarat).
She said the President saw the just-concluded election in India as a very positive one and he looked forward to welcoming Prime Minister Modi in Washington at the earliest opportunity. Secretary Kerry is also ready to travel to India as and when the opportunity arises.
"We are eager to engage but we also don't want to overwhelm the new government with our priorities and dates...We are not looking to impose an architecture or a timetable," the official said.
The two sides are scheduled to meet for the annual strategic dialogue sometime in summer. The Assistant Secretary indicated that the US side was open to dates and venues (although it is Washington's turn to host the dialogue) but would wait for the new government to settle in. "We are waiting to hear from new government about their preference," she added.
The official said Prime Minister-elect Modi's gesture of inviting regional leaders for his swearing in is a "strong positive sign" but it is for the leaders to respond to the invitation.
Despite the difficulties Washington and New Delhi have had in recent months, the assistant secretary challenged doubts in some quarters about the vitality and quality of the so-called strategic relationship. "To say this is not a strategic relationship is categorically false; it is one in every way," she maintained, reeling off a broad and deep range of engagement between the two sides beyond intermittent problems on trade and other issues.
 

AVERAGE INDIAN

EXORCIST
Senior Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2012
Messages
3,325
Likes
5,407
Country flag
Narendra Modi accepts Obama's invitation for US visit in September

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the United States in September this year to meet President Barack Obama. Modi has accepted Obama's invitation and this will be his first trip to US.

Modi will be attending UN General Assembly meeting in New York for two days and will have a bilateral meeting with Obama which will focus on fostering ties between India and the US and economic ties.

The move signals a new start in ties with Modi who was once denied a visa by the United States by the George Bush administration due to 2002 Gujarat riots.

Reacting to this, Defence Analyst, Capt. Bharat Verma on Thursday said, "Will be a welcome move if PM Modi meets President Obama in September. Step in national interest."

Sources suggest that the bilateral meeting between the two leaders has been tentatively fixed between September 25 to September 30.

However, no comment has been made by Indian government press office or from the US embassy.

The US had on 14 May said that the heads of state and government are eligible for A1 visas and no individual automatically qualifies for an American visa.
Modi meets Nawaz Sharif
Strengthning bilateral ties between India and Pakistan, Narendra Modi also met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif this month.

Indo-US dialogue in New Delhi
A top American Senator on Wednesday called for holding the next round of India-US Strategic Dialogue in New Delhi this year as against the scheduled venue of Washington, to show a good will gesture towards the new Narendra Modi-led government.

"The (India US Strategic) Dialogue (in New Delhi) would provide an early opportunity for the US Government to engage with the new Government in India," Senator Mark Warner, said.

The Strategic Dialogue, which was launched by the previous Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is held every year alternatively in India and the United States. Last year it was held in New Delhi, for which the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, travelled to India. As such the Strategic Dialogue for this year is scheduled this year in Washington. But Warner and many friends for India in the US have been arguing that this year it should be held in New Delhi. "Since the new Indian government will just be getting started, holding the Dialogue in Delhi will be less disruptive to organising meetings and will provide both sides the opportunity to meet and get to work early in the term on joint initiatives," Warner said.

Before leaving for Central Asia, China and India, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal, had said the US is open to the idea of holding this year's Strategic Dialogue in New Delhi, but any decision would be held only in consultation with the new Indian Government. In a major foreign policy speech on India-US Trade Relationship, Warner, who is co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, the only country-specific caucus in the United States Senate also called for establishing a public-private working group on infrastructure investment.

"In Gujarat, Mr Modi made infrastructure improvements a priority. He built thousands of kilometres of highways and improved the port facility. For US firms, a large part of the investment opportunities for the next five years are likely to be in infrastructure," he said. He noted that some American firms that have previously invested in India have experienced difficulties with payment certainty and are shy to take the risks of being primary developers.

"A public-private group could be charged with finding a way to ensure payment security for American investment, pointing toward specific projects where American firms can and should bid, and focusing US Government assistance to help identify American firms to play a role in the infrastructure build out," Warner said.

Read more at: Narendra Modi accepts Obama's invitation for US visit in September : North, News - India Today
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top