Looks like yours truly has endorsed Obama:-). My quote in the Bankok Post comes up right at the end. Now, all I have to do is wait for Obama to call me and offer me a Cabinet post:-). Truth be told, I have been rooting for Obama right from the Democratic Primaries, and especially after [...]
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has a South Asia program which comes out with an online newsletter called South Asia Perspectives. I was browsing through the September issue and was shocked to find a link to an article obstensibly co-written by our Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon. Worse, he was spilling the beans on how [...]
I am always struck by the efficiency of the US PR machine which does not let go even one opportunity go by when it comes to tom-tomming India-US relations. Take the last week alone, though there were payloads from the European Space Agency, Bulgaria, Sweden, and Germany, from reading the papers, one would think that [...]
There are conflicting reports as to whether Gen. Casey visited Siachen or not. According to Defence spokesman Lt. Col Anil Mathur in the Indian Express, Casey did not set foot anywhere in the Siachen area, but visited Ladakh. In fact, the only purpose of his visit was apparently to scout out suitable locations for joint [...]
The US Army Chief of Staff, Gen George Casey, is reportedly up on the Siachen Glacier, the highest battle field in the world to get an understanding of how the Indian Army conducts mountain warfare. This has expectedly, (or unexpectedly, according to some) evoked protest from the Pakistanis. Thus would be the second protest in [...]
No prizes for guessing who’s going to gain the most from the loosening of restrictions post the nuclear deal. There has been increasing collaboration between the militaries of the two countries, to the extent that they have actually gone beyond the declaratory phase. To wit, the ongoing series of Malabar exercises by the two navies [...]
It finally, came as an anti-climax, amidst the global economic melt-down. A week after Condi Rice came to Delhi, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee flew to Washington, and the deal was signed in the presence of the usual suspects, “honorable members of the U.S. Congress, distinguished secretaries of the U.S. Administration, excellencies, friends of India” [...]
If the Bush man is going through the lowest point in his professional life, he’s showing no sign of it. He might only be a percentage point above Nixon on the all-time Presidential popularity stakes but he was his jolly old self at the signing ceremony of H.R. 7081, the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval [...]
It is quite ironic that the very instrument that was supposed to remove the enduring trust deficit in Indo-US relations itself became a victim of that deficit. Poor Condi Rice made the long trip from Foggy Bottom to South Block, only to return empty-handed. There was just no way the Indian government could have signed [...]
Thought I’d start my account on this blog with a quickie on the nuclear deal which has finally made it through the Senate 86-13. The New York Times has a useful graphic on how the votes were cast. The actual rollcall in the Senate can be found here. All thirteen who voted against were Democrats, [...]
