Just expelling an "equivalent rank diplomat"? What kind of retaliation is that? Even pakistan which still is on life support from US does better than that!US is encouraged by response like that of Mansingh's. If one individual's dignity should be sacrificed over issues of global importance shouldn't he give the same advice to the Americans?Recalling a diplomat is a serious, and fairly unusual, move that sends a message to Washington that India's government doesn't accept the legitimacy of the court action in New York.
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"It's a shame this came to the fore over one individual," said Lalit Mansingh, India's ambassador to the U.S. from 2001 to 2004. "It sends the message that we're touchy about personal integrity, rather than about issues of global importance."
CRamS wrote:One thing I hope everybody on DDM and in India in general will learn from this episode is to not go ga ga over an NRI pipsqueak like me achieve something here and there. 90+% of NRIs are in US for personal aggrandizement (nothing wrong with that), and as far as US India relations go, they contribute nothing. And many NRIs are downright detrimental to US India relations at a strategic level. At the end of the day, the villian in this case is that Unccle Tom b@stard Preet Barara (someone said he shares the Khalistani hatred towards India, don't know if its true), not to mention that 2-bit SD official, Nisha Desai. Also, judging from the comments to various articles, most of the NRIs are so challenged in their strategic understanding of US policy, that they take out their pet grouses and hatreds against India: related to power, secessionist desires, privilege, caste/class, law enforcement, corruption etc, based on what is reported about DK. I mean lets face it, it takes some level of foreign policy understanding that the custodial rape of DK has nothing to do with the ostensible US concerns for fair wages and other moralistic crap, but own people (theIT wallahs, newly arrived feminists etc have fallen for it). At the end of the day, this is another one of those Indian Vs Indian Vs Indian (and I make no distinction between honorary white Indians like PB and those like DK and SR) spats with whites having the last laugh going to the bank.
Score card: US gets an A+
India gets an F-
And online comments like online polling is highly unreliable predictor of the mood of a nation or on the streets especially in a country like India with access to internet being what it is.Sagar G wrote:Comments on news sites are moderated and can be doctored to represent a particular view.
The US government tried to oust the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, by manipulating elections in 2009, in what amounted to a "clumsy and failed putsch", the former defence secretary Robert Gates has been quoted as writing in his memoirs.
Karzai has long claimed that the US tried to manipulate the poll to remove him from office, while Washington insisted it was an impartial supporter of democracy. The revelations in Gates's account of his years in power, which is published next week and covers the war in Afghanistan, appear to vindicate the Afghan leader's suspicions.
The top US diplomat Richard Holbrooke supported Karzai's rivals in the hope of pushing the poll to a second round that the incumbent would lose, Foreign Policy magazine reported.
"It was all ugly: our partner, the president of Afghanistan, was tainted, and our hands were dirty as well," Gates is quoted writing.
Karzai has cited concerns about foreign interference in a vote to choose his successor later this year as one reason for the delay in signing a long-term security pact with Washington to keep troops in the country after their combat mission ends later this year.
The deal is unlikely to be signed on the timetable the US government would like, the ambassador to Kabul warned in a secret cable leaked to the Washington Post.
US politicians and the military want it sealed early this year to allow for a smooth withdrawal and planning for next year if any troops stay on.
Ties with Kabul have been strained by a string of disagreements over civilian deaths, election planning and other issues, including the release of dozens of men Karzai says are innocent and the US claims are a serious security threat.
Washington insists that if there is no deal, it will resort to its "zero option" and take all troops home , but Karzai has argued that is an empty threat to bolster the US negotiating position.
Holbrooke, who died in December 2010, was the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and played a key role in 2009 efforts to remove Karzai from power. He paid public lip-service to the idea of a level playing field, but was working behind the scenes to ensure the opposite, Gates writes: "Holbrooke was doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai… What he really wanted was to have enough credible candidates running to deny Karzai a majority in the election, thus forcing a runoff in which he could be defeated."
Tactics included advising candidates, attending their rallies and organising high-profile photo opportunities, the memoir claims. Karzai soon noticed the efforts, it adds.
In the end, the election was plagued by serious fraud and worries about violence. The candidate who got through to a second round against the president eventually called off the vote and conceded defeat.
A White House spokesman, Caitlin Hayden, strongly denied Gates's claims. "The US's interest was in a stable Afghanistan, with credible democratic elections – not in helping any candidate win or lose," she said.
How about ensuring that no diplomat of ours is in violation of any law ? Is that too much to ask for ?
My apologies Singha, but that's nonsense. This maid issue has happened repeatedly. I'm not in any way supportive of what the US did here, but that doesn't excuse our govt. from ensuring our diplos are not in breach of local laws. US has always been serious about labour laws and those were not "pulled out of the posterior of khan". What they did with Russian diplomats or not is very irrelevant. We're not interested in letting our diplomats behave that way, neither should we put them in a position of vulnerability.Singha wrote:'laws' are pulled out of the posterior of khan as a matter of convenience, international agreements are treated like toilet paper what to speak of informal arrangements.
there is absolutely no way india can ensure squeaky clean ahimsa on any US law unless we shut down the consulate. havent all of us spat on the road, urinated against a bush, jumped a traffic light sometime? there are laws and rules against such things buried in our law books somewhere.
the only way to deal with the US is the way Russia/China deals with the US - a strictly mercantile transactional relation , and any mischief is retaliated instantly and harshly at the other end.
Why does this keep cropping up? Who cares if you can do it. If she wants to hire a maid, its her prerogative. Besides, as singha says, this minimum wage calculation was changed recently to exclude accomodation, food etc. So it wasn't always this way. A nyc apartment rent is more than minimum wage itself! Besides selective implementation of law is what he meant by pulling laws out the wazoo. They do not pull nonsense like this with the chinese or the russians. Krittika Biswas was also a case of brilliant law implementation was it? The actual person involved in that case was not even arrested! Besides labour laws and illegal mexican workers? Yeah right.KrishnaK wrote: There are millions of DOOs who work 70 hour weeks without maids. I'm sure our diplomats can too.
Agreed, americans can't expect leniency if they'd like to be anal about their local laws.Sanjay wrote:KrishnaK, I agree with the addition that we ruthlessly prosecute and persecute any American diplomat for as much as littering.
WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING !!! GOI has sold all indians their unborn children into slavery of amirkhan. Do you not know they have been plotting against us dharmics for ages now ?I hate to say this but I think we are being very harsh on GOI.
The US continues to be a friend even if it is an assh01e. That's the way they'd rather behave and it's very much their choice. What's regrettable is that they choose to lose genuine warmth they have in India over something like this. That said to have spats like this characterized as the actions of an enemy is ludicrous. America has done no material damage to us with this action. They will continue to be our largest investors, the largest market for our services and *one* of our most important allies.In fact, the US showed its hand and has destroyed whatever goodwill it had - the distrust and hatred is back with a vengeance. The comments in the WRM (white racist media) show that there is no point in viewing the US as a friendly nation and India has to learn to get what it can wherever it can and from whomever it can.
What will be disgusting is if the US returns to its privileged position.
I think we can do without such name calling. If America can manage to have it's quislings here, so to speak and we can't in the US, it is very much our fault. The best course of action would be to rectify the underlying issue rather than make this an issue of honour.India also needs to deal with the WRM agents (or correspondents) that pollute India and also their local quislings.
Even more importantly, the quislings such as Ajai Shukla need to be hounded out of cyberspace and newsprint.
As far as I can tell the minimum wage calculation was changed by an administrative rule rather than law and they can be challenged as being too wide, vague or outside the scope of the law itself. They created a class for live-in workers and amongst them another sub class for those on A3 visa.Prasad wrote:Why does this keep cropping up? Who cares if you can do it. If she wants to hire a maid, its her prerogative. Besides, as singha says, this minimum wage calculation was changed recently to exclude accomodation, food etc. So it wasn't always this way. A nyc apartment rent is more than minimum wage itself! Besides selective implementation of law is what he meant by pulling laws out the wazoo. They do not pull nonsense like this with the chinese or the russians. Krittika Biswas was also a case of brilliant law implementation was it? The actual person involved in that case was not even arrested! Besides labour laws and illegal mexican workers? Yeah right.KrishnaK wrote: There are millions of DOOs who work 70 hour weeks without maids. I'm sure our diplomats can too.
It wouldn't take too much effort for our babus to figure out a process for Indian visa which would equally lend itself to applying "visa fraud" charges whenever convenient. Our babu skill in thinking up bureaucratic legalese is quite legendary - but this skill has unfortunately been limited in being applied locally to Indian citizens. These skills now need to be turned outwards in the right direction.KrishnaK wrote:My apologies Singha, but that's nonsense. This maid issue has happened repeatedly. I'm not in any way supportive of what the US did here, but that doesn't excuse our govt. from ensuring our diplos are not in breach of local laws. US has always been serious about labour laws and those were not "pulled out of the posterior of khan". What they did with Russian diplomats or not is very irrelevant. We're not interested in letting our diplomats behave that way, neither should we put them in a position of vulnerability.
There are millions of DOOs who work 70 hour weeks without maids. I'm sure our diplomats can too.
It keeps cropping up because we're opening ourselves to legal action. Hiring a maid is very much DK's prerogative. Hiring one in violation of labour laws is not. Why not just hire a maid in the US ? Why ship one from India ? G. Parathasarathy, a former diplomat himself, made a case that the maid was being paid a good wage by Indian standards.Prasad wrote:Why does this keep cropping up? Who cares if you can do it. If she wants to hire a maid, its her prerogative. Besides, as singha says, this minimum wage calculation was changed recently to exclude accomodation, food etc. So it wasn't always this way. A nyc apartment rent is more than minimum wage itself!KrishnaK wrote: There are millions of DOOs who work 70 hour weeks without maids. I'm sure our diplomats can too.
Their country, their laws and their implementation. We have absolutely no say there and we shouldn't. What the russians or chinese do is their business. I'd rather Indian diplomats also not indulge in fraud.Besides selective implementation of law is what he meant by pulling laws out the wazoo. They do not pull nonsense like this with the chinese or the russians. Krittika Biswas was also a case of brilliant law implementation was it? The actual person involved in that case was not even arrested! Besides labour laws and illegal mexican workers? Yeah right.
ShankarCag wrote:^^^^^DK is not a DOO. She doesn't earn her bread slaving for a US firm. She works for the GOI and is a privileged person, her being a diplomat, as all diplomats are worldwide. If she chooses to keep a maid that's her and the Indian govt's business. Last I checked having a maid wasn't a crime in India. Remember only Indian laws are applicable to this case. Both DK and SR were on Indian passports and disputes if any were under the jurisdiction of Indian courts. For patently oblique reasons (spying?) US SD and Khalistani attack dogm PB waded into this matter and are patently in contempt of Indian courts and Indian law which is the only law that is applicable to this case. That DOO washes his own underwear is a non-sequitor in this matter. Why do you find this simple matter so difficult to wrap around your head?
I am still using the Gates memoir on the Obama Admin/team hamartia of domestic politics over-riding all issues.matrimc wrote:ramana garu: Another complicating factor is that President Obama made up his mind already that the jobs are getting "Bangalored". May be the letter was like adding more fuel to the fire. We need to explain DoS and Secy Kerry and his organization's part in the la affaire de Khobragade.ramana wrote:The trap was sprung in June 2013 with that letter from 170 Congressmen.
Looks like BRF message is being realized in India if not among all our own members.....So the key lesson for us Indians is this: we have to stand by our people when they are targeted abroad. It does not matter if those Indians may not be so well thought of here. The US stood by a man - Richard Davies - who killed two people in Pakistan but the Americans bailed him out even though he was not a diplomat and had no immunity.
This is what we should learn from the US: stand by your own people when they are in trouble. And fight your local battles locally.
SagarG and others, At least let him say his piece. Why muzzle the thoughts? Otherwise why have a forum? Can be a moderated or worse paid comments board like UNDTV et al!!!!Sagar G wrote:
Thought so, take my unsolicited advice and stop getting worked up about this issue by expecting this sold out GoI to take any retaliatory steps. It's not going to happen.
WITH, in the words of her lawyer, “her head held high”, the New York-based Indian diplomat at the centre of her country’s worst row with America in years, has left the country. Devyani Khobragde, charged with paying her maid too little and committing fraud to obtain a visa for her, was asked to leave after being formally indicted. Crucially, America's State Department had approved her transfer to a job at the UN, in which she enjoyed full diplomatic immunity.
The Indian government and public had been outraged by her arrest last month, which she said involved handcuffs, strip-searching and time in the lock-up with common criminals and drug addicts.
The government had taken reprisals against American diplomats in India—removing the security roadblocks outside the embassy in Delhi, for example, halting its import clearances (no cheap booze!) and investigating what Americans paid their domestic staff in India.
An American Congressional delegation found itself snubbed in Delhi. And this month, America’s energy secretary, Enest Moniz, had to cancel a planned trip to India.
Since America and India say they want to be “strategic partners”, the unseemly squabble not just embarrassing; it had an importance entirely out of proportion to the seemingly rather trivial cause.
In trying to resolve it, the State Department has made the big concession. It amounts to a tacit admission that the arrest was poorly handled, whether or not Ms Khobragade should have enjoyed immunity at the time of her arrest.
India’s government will feel vindicated for its tough stance. Not just did it feel it had to take a strong stand in defence of Indian national dignity. It also will have been conscious that, with an election looming, the issue might cost it votes, if it were not seen to be protecting an Indian citizen's interests. Moreover, Ms Khobragade is a Dalit, a member of the group once called untouchable, which accounts for more than 15% of the electorate.
However, the row may linger on. Ms Khobragde has left her family in New York. They may not want to leave—her husband is an American citizen of Indian origin, and their two children are in school. Since officially her charges are still “pending”, she will need the protection of full immunity to visit them.
More fundamentally, the tiff has uncovered a deep rift in the two countries’ perceptions of one another. From the Indian perspective, America remains unwilling to afford it the respect a true partner deserves. And from the American, the Indian response reveals both a brittle anxiety about its own status and a callous disregard for the well-being of the person the American justice system saw as the victim in this story—the maid. Rather than partners, the two countries look like strangers.
Sanjay, the issue boils down to hiring maids in *India*, getting them visas so they can work full time in the US with our diplomats. Surely that can be done without ? Either hire them on full US wage + $1 or better still hire maids in the US.Sanjay wrote:KrishnaK, just a caveat - DK through her attorney indicated that SR was not paid under the minimum wage.
Whether true or not, I don't know but frankly I really don't care at this point, although I fully agree that in no way shape or form can lawbreaking by Indian diplomatic officials be condoned.
Your statement on fraud causes me concern - the US would have had to prove that DK forced SR to sign a false declaration of income - was DK so stupid as to tell SR a number that was as large as DK's own salary ?
That was the weakest part of the US case but the one with the heaviest penalty. The minimum wage thing is more difficult to argue.
I'm sorry but I couldn't disagree with you more. Ajai Shukla, the gent in question here, hasn't done anything that can be characterized as treason. The forum likes to tom tom about traitors, quislings the moment it's hardcore nationalistic line isn't toed by anybody. There are plenty of patriotic Indians out there, who think it is the GoI's fault. It's good to have a variety of opinion.Quislings is an apt word for anyone when their country's representatives are at risk, argues the American case better than the Americans.
Agree completely, although it is regrettable that it came to the arrest in the first place.Even if the arrest had to be made, it could have been handled better.
+ 100Sanjay wrote:Ramana, it is worrying that even on BRF there is seemingly an acceptance of every word on the indictment by some people.DK allegedly did certain things. The US media and the quislings (I prefer that word as his fate matches what I think should happen to them) accepted DK's guilt as a given.That is unacceptable.
Desederata by Max Ehrmann, American Poet.And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
