India-US Relations : News and Discussion

[saip]

Loretta Lynch, Federal Prosecutor, Will Be Nominated for Attorney General

So no Preet Bharara, then.

NYTimes

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Robin Raphel - a foe, however old and irrelevant now, now cut down in size - celebrate!

[Prem]

May be she was secretly given Nishaan-e-Pakistan by handsome Pakjabi men and the US government did not like it.at age 67 ??I suppose there is no upper age limit for receiving Nishaan-e-Pakistan.

The ideological right &freedom is exercised in this matter , even the dead ones receive the award without gender discrimination etc.

[Shreeman]

^^^ Robin Raphel - a foe, however old and irrelevant now, now cut down in size - celebrate!

Arun,

Cutting down in size equals no one paying attention. Is no one paying attention?

This person held an office and implemented (flawed) policies. Little to be gained in gloating over even sunroof levering of one such daughter of the world or the lamp posting of her father. It is an easy way to identify leanings of readers and not much else.

She broke some rules, she pays the price and retires. No footnotes needed.

[K Mehta]

X-posting from STFUP thread

if Pakistan is not totally under US control and is actually manipulating and using the US, then we need not end up fighting the US. We only need to bring Pakistan's hostility and antagonism to the US out in the open and let the alliance break up.

For these and a host of other reasons I believe that the key element has been access to accurate information. We (the lay public) too have access to information provided we look at all sources rather than restrict ourselves to some Paki media that may be designed to simply fool us.Therefore we need to look at all information from Pakistan with care and to check if alternate sources and different views are available.

Strategizing and planning are all about information. If you take planted information or ignore available info, the ideas you get will be wrong. The subject is huge and I must point out that many of my thoughts have been guided by knowledge of some military history. I commend the GoI's drive to see that it is documented

Shivji your post made a bulb light up in my mind. I remembered the lecture by Bruce Reidel (at Brookings foundation?) where he was saying that the depiction of Pakistan in American media was something that really struck you. What he is saying is it is striking not that it is realistic, meaning he too is trying to cover up the reality like the SD. The exposure of the aam joe to the afpak situation due to high number of troops going in and out,, has brought them very close to reality.
What you are saying is that we should have been more proactive about expose this Pakistani backstabbing and also expose the role of lobbyists and bought /influenced agents like fai, robin raphael, halfbright, amritraj, weiner and Keith Ellison.

[KLP Dubey]

Loretta Lynch, Federal Prosecutor, Will Be Nominated for Attorney General

So no Preet Bharara, then.

NYTimes

Good. Waiting for 2016 - the end of Obama and his motley crowd of "Indians" (TV talking heads, movie comedians, ivory-tower guys, etc) in the government.

[member_28042]

The search happened on Oct 21st. Why this information coming out now ?

Veteran U.S. Diplomat Under Investigation

The Post reported that law enforcement officials searched Raphel's home on October 21st. Agents reportedly removed bags and boxes from the residence and her State Department office remains locked today. Her last position was as a senior advisor in the special office on Pakistan and Afghanistan — administering non-military aid.

Why is India-baiter Robin Raphel under FBI scanner?

Citing unnamed officials, The New York Times said the FBI was trying to determine why Raphel apparently brought classified information home, and whether she had passed, or was planning to pass, the information to a foreign government.

[Kakkaji]

Hamid Mir is the one who blew the whistle.

Interesting details, hence posting in full:

India ‘link’ to Raphel fall

New Delhi, Nov. 8: A tip from Indian soil which shed new light on how US diplomat Robin Raphel empowered the Taliban may have hastened her downfall in Washington.

Accounts from Raisina Hill, the seat of government in New Delhi and from Chanakyapuri, the capital’s diplomatic enclave, however, indicated that India’s official apparatus was not involved in the tip. The US embassy was behind relaying the information, albeit in the course of routine transmission of material.

The long-running counter-intelligence probe of Raphel, who began her American civil service career with the CIA, appears to have taken a critical turn when Hamid Mir, executive editor of Pakistan’s Geo TV, made credible revelations about her nearly two-decade-old support for the Taliban to senior editorial staff of The Indian Express in the third week of October.

Mir, along with Shafqat Mahmood, a leader of Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf, said in the course of an exchange on India-Pakistan relations with the editors in New Delhi that Raphel had weighed heavily on then Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1995 to throw Islamabad’s weight behind the Taliban. At that time, the world viewed the Taliban as a curiosity and it was mistaken by many countries as a nascent student movement for reforming Afghanistan and getting rid of its endemic corruption and warlordism.

Raphel was then the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, a new entity created with much fanfare in the state department. A middle-ranking diplomat at the US embassy in Chankayapuri, Raphel was catapulted to head the new bureau over several others her senior because she was an “FoB,” Friend of Bill.

Like Strobe Talbott, another FoB who became deputy secretary of state as a political appointee, Bill Clinton brought in a number of his old friends from his Oxford and London years into his administration. Of all of them, Raphel is the one who did maximum damage to America, albeit in retrospect.

She had no excuse for confusing the Taliban for an innocent student movement. She was already an expert on Pakistan and had her resourceful CIA experience behind her. Raphel’s husband (they were divorced by then) gave up his life travelling with General Zia-ul-Haq on their fatal flight in Bahawalpur in 1988.

Here is what Mir said on the record in the third week of October: “The Taliban movement emerged in Afghanistan in 1994. In 1995, I was travelling with then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to the US. Bhutto met ambassador Robin Raphel in New York. We came to know that Raphel had asked Bhutto to announce her support to the Taliban. It was very disturbing. I wrote in my column from New York that here is the first elected woman Prime Minister in the whole Muslim world, the Taliban are imposing a ban on girls’ education (in Afghanistan) and she had been asked by Robin Raphel, another woman, to announce her support for the Taliban.”

Benazir did not take kindly to Mir and other journalists getting wind of what had transpired at the meeting with Raphel and she was even less kindly to Mir for writing a column revealing Raphel’s advice.

Here is Mir again in his own words: “When we were coming (back home) from New York, the Prime Minister met me on the plane and said, ‘You are criticising me’. I replied, ‘Yes, this is democracy, I don’t like the Taliban and you are supporting the Taliban at the behest of Raphel’. So she instructed her interior minister to brief me why the Taliban are good for Pakistan.”

A few days passed. “The interior minister organised a briefing for me and Nusrat Javed, a colleague, and explained that we (Pakistan) were using the Taliban as the ‘pipeline police’. We wanted a gas pipeline from Uzbekistan to Pakistan and there was nobody who could protect it because the government in Kabul, the Northern Alliance, was supported by the Indians and the Iranians and they might destroy the gas pipeline.”

Now Mir demanded his price for changing course. “I said OK, I would like to meet Mullah Omar (the Taliban chief). The interior minister said ‘OK’. I met Mullah Omar in Kandahar…. I was astonished he was not aware Raphel was American.”

With Mir’s talk of the pipeline stake, there may be wheels within wheels in the raid on Raphel by the FBI. Not that the investigating agencies did not know. But Mir’s account is confirmation of what the FBI may have long suspected.

Three days after Mir spoke to the editors in New Delhi, Raphel lost her security clearance. This week’s developments, including the sealing of her state department office and a search of her residence, are a follow-up to the revocation of her security clearance.

US embassies across the world routinely send to the state department material such as Mir’s statements that are in the public domain. Sometimes, as in Raphel’s case, they have rare and unexpected consequences.

It was well-known in South Block in the 1990s, the period under review, that the Americans were willing to overlook ideological anathema, including Islamic extremism, for the sake of energy and mineral resources in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Those who approached India as lobbyists on behalf of US oil companies during those years include some big names: Condoleezza Rice, who later became US national security adviser and secretary of state; and Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan American who was later US ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, and whom the US unsuccessfully tried to foist on Kabul as President in succession to Hamid Karzai.

When the Taliban took power in Kabul in December 1996, Raphel was the assistant secretary of state in charge of South Asia. At her persuasion, the US extended recognition to the Taliban, only to withdraw it 10 minutes later.

Even though Raphel left her post a year after the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the US continued her policy of mollycoddling the Taliban, nurturing a monster that would devour the US in association with al Qaida on September 11, 2001.

That policy was abandoned only in August 1998 after two US embassies in east Africa were bombed by terrorists.

During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama years, Raphel held the purse strings to US aid to Pakistan and she shuttled between Islamabad and Washington, residing alternately in both of her favourite cities.

It is not known if the latest FBI probe covers the huge amount of money she disbursed and whether it went into the hands of those who are a threat to America, like the Taliban.

[JE Menon]

^^Interesting, but perhaps only incidental. It is unlikely that the FBI had to wait for the Indian Express interview with Mir to start the ball rolling against Raphel. They knew of it when he first wrote about it when he was in New York with Bhutto and Raphel.

It was common knowledge then that the US was pushing the Conoco line of a pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India (TAPI, if I remember right). It was also common knowledge then that the Taliban were a brutal, medievally violent force created by Pakistan. So the line being suggested that "the world viewed the Taliban as a curiosity and it was mistaken by many countries as a nascent student movement" is disingenuous. Who is the "world" in this case and what has that to do with Raphel's actions, which were sanctioned by the State Dept? Is the implicit suggestion that no one was overseeing what Raphel was up to? That is also unlikely because Raphel was not an unknown, as the article itself points out.

It is entirely likely that Raphel was pushing the Conoco view on the oil pipeline, using all available argumentation to justify it and bringing in the Taliban as the "pipeline police" which would help both her pocket, and her friends in Pakistan with their geo-strategic interest. The question is whether she shared this line of thinking with ISI officers (almost certainly), and whether in pushing for that, she got paid by Conoco and Pakistan (I'd be surprised if she didn't one way or another). In short, she was probably organising a deal which would help Conoco and Pakistan (and consequently herself), but not the United States national interest - as subsequent events demonstrated. Don't forget that it was around this time that Taliban leadership figures "secretly" visited the US under State Department auspices, but primarily with an energy-related agenda.

[symontk]

It could possibly be an outcome of Bi nLaden tapes? Did he receive anything which is considered classified in US? Otherwise an espionage case against a state dept official, not possible

[Philip]

So "Jaws" finally met her inevitable fate.F**k a Paki, get scr*w*d.It doesn't absolve the US either who winked at Paki perfidy for decades.RR is not the only Paki lover in Foggy Bottom.It is the ISIS factor and Talib resurgence that has accelerated her downfall.

[JE Menon]

>>RR is not the only Paki lover in Foggy Bottom.

Amen to that.

Every internet yindoo should cross his forearms, hold his ears, and do a semi-baithak 121 times repeating that line.

[chetak]

^^Interesting, but perhaps only incidental. It is unlikely that the FBI had to wait for the Indian Express interview with Mir to start the ball rolling against Raphel. They knew of it when he first wrote about it when he was in New York with Bhutto and Raphel.

It was common knowledge then that the US was pushing the Conoco line of a pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India (TAPI, if I remember right). It was also common knowledge then that the Taliban were a brutal, medievally violent force created by Pakistan. So the line being suggested that "the world viewed the Taliban as a curiosity and it was mistaken by many countries as a nascent student movement" is disingenuous. Who is the "world" in this case and what has that to do with Raphel's actions, which were sanctioned by the State Dept? Is the implicit suggestion that no one was overseeing what Raphel was up to? That is also unlikely because Raphel was not an unknown, as the article itself points out.

It is entirely likely that Raphel was pushing the Conoco view on the oil pipeline, using all available argumentation to justify it and bringing in the Taliban as the "pipeline police" which would help both her pocket, and her friends in Pakistan with their geo-strategic interest. The question is whether she shared this line of thinking with ISI officers (almost certainly), and whether in pushing for that, she got paid by Conoco and Pakistan (I'd be surprised if she didn't one way or another). In short, she was probably organising a deal which would help Conoco and Pakistan (and consequently herself), but not the United States national interest - as subsequent events demonstrated. Don't forget that it was around this time that Taliban leadership figures "secretly" visited the US under State Department auspices, but primarily with an energy-related agenda.

Interesting. Could have easily been a very successful Indian politician. She has all the right genetic material. So many names come easily to mind and mostly from the kangress.

[vishvak]

So "Jaws" finally met her inevitable fate.F**k a Paki, get scr*w*d.It doesn't absolve the US either who winked at Paki perfidy for decades.RR is not the only Paki lover in Foggy Bottom.It is the ISIS factor and Talib resurgence that has accelerated her downfall.

The bolded part should make it to the first post of this very thread, India-US Relations: News and Discussions. Otherwise people will think that USA only has saints and triple PhDs. The thread is for news and discussions and not for pleasant cover up of REAL AMERICA & American interests/practices/history/duplicity/masks.

[vivek.rao]

I still don't know what is the issue with Dems and especially Obama? The Anti-Indian and Pro-paki terrorist supporting SD folks get a lot of support these idiots. Why? Can anyone explain? Obama/Clinton for all the support they got from India/Indians in US have repeatedly appointed these shady characters.

[Cosmo_R]

I still don't know what is the issue with Dems and especially Obama? The Anti-Indian and Pro-paki terrorist supporting SD folks get a lot of support these idiots. Why? Can anyone explain? Obama/Clinton for all the support they got from India/Indians in US have repeatedly appointed these shady characters.

For clues, read Chetak's comment above. Especially the 'Kangress' bit. The views were perfectly aligned.

[anmol]

another one from editorial board

takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/narendra-modis-cabinet-is-a-rogues-gallery/?partner=rss

Narendra Modi’s Cabinet Is a Rogue’s Gallery
by CAROL GIACOMO, takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com
November 10th 2014

On the campaign trail earlier this year, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, appealed to voters by promising to combat corruption and clean up politics. He was rewarded with a huge national electoral victory as well as success in state elections last month.

Yet on Monday, Mr. Modi substantially reneged on these commitments when he named 21 new members to his cabinet. According to Reuters, the appointees include at least five people charged with such serious offenses as rape and rioting; a total of seven are facing prosecution. Ram Shankar Katheria, who was named junior education minister, has been accused of more than 20 criminal offenses including attempted murder and the promotion of religious or racial hostility.Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissed suggestions that there are criminals in the cabinet as “completely baseless.” He drew an odd distinction, telling reporters “these are cases arising out of criminal accusations, not cases of a crime.” Meanwhile, a spokesman for Mr. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party said it was up to the courts to decide such cases and attributed many of the charges to political rivalries.

He’s right that the courts should decide guilt or innocence. And it may not be unusual for political rivals to make accusations against one another. It is also true that the over-taxed Indian system often drags prosecutions out for years, delaying justice.

But none of the above means that allegations of criminal wrongdoing should be ignored. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms in India, about one third of federal and state legislators face charges, and — amazingly — politicians facing criminal charges are twice as likely to win election as those who are not.

At a minimum, Mr. Modi’s decision to bring such tainted individuals into his government creates a bad impression and raises legitimate questions among voters who have demanded a government that respects the rule of law.

In a country where many people have lost faith in democratic governance, Mr. Modi also pledged to lead a “small yet effective government.”, Yet his 21 new appointees bring the cabinet to 66, not so very different from that of his last two predecessors. Some argue that since Mr. Modi has effectively centralized power in his office, the cabinet appointees are not that important.

But he told Indians he was a different kind of leader. Is he or is he not?

[CRamS]

^^^ Robin Raphel - a foe, however old and irrelevant now, now cut down in size - celebrate!

To use a cricket match analogy, say India batting, is chasing a daunting target hits a boundary. No doubt worth celebrating, but a long way to go.

[habal]

pakistan is being set up.

first chinese offer pakistan $40b worth of projects. If it materializes or not is immaterial. It is an offer to replace someone.
second robin raphel thrown out.

this means geo-political shift is taking place.

[KLNMurthy]

Don't really understand why RR is being targeted now, since her doings would all have been common knowledge for a long time. Might be something petty like personal rivalries between individual power brokers in state dept/cia.

[SanjayC]

another one from editorial board

takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/narendra-modis-cabinet-is-a-rogues-gallery/?partner=rss

Narendra Modi’s Cabinet Is a Rogue’s Gallery
by CAROL GIACOMO, takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com
November 10th 2014

Gora racist bigots are in full flow. Someone is orchestrating this kind of anti-India, anti-Modi reporting in NYT, etc. Looks like the evangelicals are involved.

[ramana]

The Hamid Mir revelation on RR promoting Taiban as pipeline police is old hat. In fact everyone in US chatteratti among Democrats and Republicans were doing that. So that is not why she is in trouble.

Taking classified material out of controlled area is a Federal offence. Its a big violation. In fact some grand pooh-baah (John Deutch?) was also fired for that same offence during Clinton years.

In RR case they want to know if there was malafide intent in taking out the classified papers. Most likely there is for the Feds never go overboard on political hacks.


Hamid Mir is being fingered by giving him credit for RR downfall.

ISI will take him out.

[Paul]

^If I am not wrong, he has already moved out to Dubai

[chetak]

^If I am not wrong, he has already moved out to Dubai

Dubai is just another airline ticket away, no? If hamid can buy a ticket, so can the isi.

[disha]

The CIA misses nothing.

They may have kept quiet at the time and kept monitoring her all the same or perhaps even more plausibly, actively directed the operations.

Should be rephrased:

The CIA misses nothing except important things

CIA had a mole operating for 10 years right inside their HQ.

CIA could not help nuke secrets going out to Soviet Union and China.

CIA could not help 9/11 and where caught with their chaddis down when Buddha smiled.

So yeah, CIA is all great and glory without any flaws - except they are not around when it really matters ...

[Hari Seldon]

^That NYT edit was stupendous. A few observations:

1. How magnanimous of 'em gora sahibs to carry the burden of conscience n concern for political rights, privileges and promises available to 'em browntrodden + unwashed in far-away turd-worldly Yindia.

2. Ain't the NYT the 'establishment mouthpiece' of Amrika bahadur? So is this a signaling of US intentions/ inclinations/ worldview or something? Yawn. So what's new, I'd say. Delhi's known US hostility for quite a while now. This signal says such shall continue. Theek hai.

3. Glad am I that the bully pulpit has been steadily shrinking in size for years now. A decade ago, NYT's pronouncements would've had impact, discussion, credibility quotient, possible policy implications etc. and not-least breast-beating and brow-beating among at least Yindia's elitist chatteratti and 'intellectual' classes. Not any longer, seems like. Whew.

4. Recently greenpiece hacks were denied visas to entering India. GoI is moving with below-radar administrative and policy actions - careful, planned, low-profile but bulls-eye as always - that may hit unkil's other interests: street level eyes-n-ears, muscle, useful idiot recruitment etc. So maybe this is an upping the ante?

5. This is the second clear reference in a row this week in NYT to 'loss of faith in India's democratic system'. Something cooking? Signal going out to unkil's ecosystem of hacks and second fiddles to latch on to this new theme , perhaps, eh?

Despite Modi and everything, it looks tough for India. Entrenched special interests out to harm us. A wonder itis that we've survived in one piece (by and large) thus far since '47. Only.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ put in a couple of comments there. One is

"Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, new junior chemicals and fertiliser minister, is charged with around 20 offences, including intent to wage war against India, criminal intimidation and aiding mutiny.

Mr Ahir did not respond to requests for comment, and his secretary said the cases were politically motivated. Mr Ahir is best known for helping unearth corruption in the coal industry while he served on a parliamentary committee." (from http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/asia/2014 ... -rap-sheet )

Is Mr Ahir a victim of false accusations by India's coal mafia? Or is he the genuine article? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Raj# ... _Jharkhand )
Is he a tool of one faction of the coal mafia, targeting another faction?

PS: one more of my letters:

Uma Bharti is one of those who have a charge of attempted murder.
The BJP should know if it is a valid charge or not, BJP party workers are the ones who filed charges. Back in 2006. In Bara Malhera District Chattarpur Here is the news-item.
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/n ... der/16342/

and here is an electronic version of the affidavit filed by candidate Uma Bharti with the Election Commission of India:
http://myneta.info/ls2014/candidate.php ... te_id=5547

PS: This is the Indian Express story from Nov 9, 2006:

Taking last week's electoral reverses in her stride, Uma Bharati today "surrendered" before the police for an offence for which she was wanted neither in Chhatarpur, where the alleged incident took place, nor in Bhopal.

Accompanied by hundreds of supporters, the sanyasin marched towards the police headquarters in a well-orchestrated event that saw a massive security blanket in the area, barricading a kilometre-long stretch. The police took her and 350 supporters into preventive detention, but immediately released them.

Bharati claimed an attempt was made on her life during the Bada Malhera by-election, but the district administration instead slapped a case on her and eight Bharatiya Janshakti activists following a complaint by a BJP worker. She accused the BJP government of misusing official machinery and alleged that the police had hatched a conspiracy to eliminate her.

Chhatarpur SP Shekhar Chanchal, whom she accused of working at the behest of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said neither Bharati nor any of her supporters were wanted at the moment as the probe was still on.

Bharati had announced five days ago that she would court arrest today, giving her party enough time to mobilise supporters. She began the day by addressing the press and later a public meeting before getting herself arrested. The party vouched the supporters had come uninvited, but a massive pandal in the Yadgar-e-Shahjahani Park and arrangement for food belied the claim.

"I don't even know whom I assaulted, yet a case for attempt to murder and loot has been filed against me and my supporters," Uma said, describing it as "vindictive politics". She said she was not ready to accept defeat as the BJP had "committed several irregularities", adding that her party would form the government in Madhya Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the state has asked Bharati to wear a bulletproof jacket citing threat to her life. Uma had recently written to the DGP returning her security. "We want her to keep her security and wear a bulletproof jacket too," a senior police officer said.

This is an excerpt from Uma Bharti affidavit filed with the Election Commission of India:
IPC 307 (307 below) is the attempted murder charge. Or visit the link I provided above.

7 147, 148, 149, 307 FIR No. 209/06, Cognition Dated, 31.10.2006, First Class Judicial Magistrate Bara Malhera District Chatarpur, Sec 25, 27 Arms Act.
8 147, 341, 323, 294, 506B FIR No. 210/06, Cognition Dated. 31.10.2006,First Class Judicial Magistrate Bara Malhera District Chatarpur,
9 147, 148, 149, 427, 323, 294, 506B FIR No. 211/06, Cognition Dated. 31.10.2006, First Class Judicial Magistrate Bara Malhera, District Chatarpar
10 147, 341, 294, 427, 506B FIR No. 212/06, Cognition Dated. 31.10.2006, First Class Judicial Magistrate Bara Malhera District Chattarpur,
11 147, 148, 323, 294, 427, 307, 506B FIR No. 213/06, Cognition Dated. 01.11.2006, First Class Judicial Magistrate Bara Malhera, District Chatarpur,

[ramana]

Obama meets Modi in Myanmar.

[rohitvats]

Obama meets Modi in Myanmar.

I see a pattern and direction in NM's foreign policy; the strategy and intent it to secure the immediate neighborhood first and then look beyond. Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and now Myanmar. SL will need a bit more work along with backroom dealing. Will require strong stick and carrot approach.

By acting actively in West Bengal and keeping Bangladesh political and security set-up in loop, Bangladesh is being handled in 'behind the curtain' manner.

Modi is trying to secure the flanks. No wonder he chose SS as FM - I don't think she's the brightest crayon in pack when it comes foreign affairs. But she is good at executing what is being asked of her.

This has PMO and Doval written in bold letters over it.

[Prem]

Obama meets Modi in Myanmar.

Then again in Brisbane. O was not looking confident in front of Empteror X1.

[Roperia]

Nice, looks like we got some concessions. India and US have successfully resolved their impasse over food security issues in #WTO. - Commerce & Industry Minister, GOI

[pankajs]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/business- ... 85521.aspx

As part of a revised proposal, India and the US have agreed for an indefinite “peace clause” on food security until a permanent solution is found, marking a major success for the Narendra Modi government in global trade talks withstanding mounting diplomatic pressure from developed countries.

...
"The United States and India reached agreement today on a set of measures intended to break the impasse in the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to implement the agreements reached last December," said a US government statement.

The two countries agreed that India's food security programmes would not be challenged under WTO rules "until a permanent solution regarding this issue has been agreed and adopted," it said.

The EU will still throw tantrums but will go with the India-US deal. IIRC, it was EU that was most vociferous in its complaint against India on WTO.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/india-u- ... 52770.html

Ms. Sitharaman said the WTO’s General Council will examine a proposal by India that will have the backing of the U.S. around December. She didn't give details of the proposal.

Lets wait for the final text of the agreement.

[pankajs]

Of-course not everyone in US is happy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alyssaayres ... t-at-apec/
India's Brinkmanship At WTO Hurts It At APEC

The annual APEC summit is underway in Beijing. Perhaps the most notable absentee is India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who received an unprecedented invitation in July from Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the gathering. Despite growing to become the world’s third largest economy in PPP terms, India is not a member of APEC, and as a result would not normally attend the summit. But this year President Xi used his platform as the summit host to extend invitations to non-members India, Pakistan, and Mongolia. While Pakistan and Mongolia’s leaders made the trip to Beijing for APEC, Prime Minister Modi decided not to do so. It’s a missed opportunity for India’s economic diplomacy at a time it could use a boost.

...
Unfortunately in this case, it’s all about the politics, and here India’s multilateral economic diplomacy over the summer did not help its case. India’s role in torpedoing the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement negotiated at Bali created a new and very unfortunate precedent in India’s multilateral track record.

...
With the WTO crisis in the foreground, and with India as the key protagonist, it’s no wonder that a groundswell for Indian membership in APEC has simply not materialized. In the longer run, that’s a strategic and tactical mistake, as APEC will benefit from having India inside the trade tent—as will India, from becoming more fully integrated with a forum focused on promoting open trade. But more time will need to elapse—and the Bali agreement will need to be rescued in some fashion—before APEC member economies will likely take up the question of Indian membership. That’s why the Beijing APEC summit would have been a good opportunity for Modi to clarify his views on the open trading system and help keep India on the agenda for expansion. This missed opportunity can be recovered, but it will take time.

[vijaykarthik]

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/us-em ... ite-620096

US embassy in India launches Urdu website. Huh? But why?

[svenkat]

An opportunity to employ mohammedans to work as house n11gers.whats new?Thats what goras(britshit and US)have been doing for centuries.musl!ms and christ!ans as spies,informers and sepoys.habalji noted in diplomatic enclave,embassies goras prefer the two groups.

[vijaykarthik]

To those who understand the TFA, a question:

Ok, so we have got food stockpiling agreement. So we can stok on food. However, unless the subsidy rules are also approved, the food subsidy cant continue the way it was envisioned?
Either the base year has to be increased or the max amount of allowed food subsidy has to be increased.

Or am I missing something?

IMO, if that isn't done, its still a deal with a disadvantage.

[pankajs]

Till a final deal is reached India's breaching of the WTO subsidy rule cannot be challenged at the WTO. That is what has been agreed per the various reports.

[vijaykarthik]

So, in your opinion, is it that the deal will be pushed through as it is? [trying to figure as I am considering a qn whether the deal will get approved by mid of 2015]

I did see a few reports where China had concerns about IT products etc... the freaks accepted a deal with the US on that a few days back. So, that problem has been fixed too.

Wondering if there is anything more in store or this paves a smooth way to the deal.

[chetak]

Robin Raphel, 'the bird', who was disliked in USA

November 13, 2014
Robin Raphel, a former US diplomat now under a counter intelligence investigation, has spent much of her professional life dealing with Pakistan and defending it against criticism as she doled out billions in aid to the “frenemy”.

She said she “understood” Pakistan. It can be argued that her understanding of India was in inverse proportion -- the more she understood Pakistan, the more she pushed its agenda and the less she understood India.

Even some State Department officials agree that her capacity to poison the waters of diplomacy on India-Pakistan issues was remarkable. She relentlessly pushed Kashmir to the forefront, perhaps imagining she would be the one to find a solution by arm-twisting India.

After retirement she worked as Pakistan’s lobbyist and then rejoined the State Department as an adviser in the key office of the Special Representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Conflict of interest doesn’t even begin to describe this sequence especially in light of the law that requires a two-year cooling-off period. In Raphel’s case, the State Department never clarified how she met the requirements of the law.

By Raphel’s own telling, she first landed in Peshawar in 1975 in a beat-up Chevrolet Vega travelling through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Her fondness for Pakistan only grew with time and in her most recent avatar as adviser she controlled $7.5 billion in non-military US aid to Pakistan.

As the news of the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe percolated through Washington, her detractors and supporters have both come out to denounce or defend her.

The exact nature of the investigation is still unknown except that most cases such cases involve allegations of spying for foreign governments. Her supporters are surprised by the revulsion she still evokes in India. They say the criticism is unfair and the reaction unwarranted since she could still come out of it unblemished.

An old Washington hand said Raphel probably got “sloppy” in handling classified documents and came under the scanner. Although not a friend of Raphel but someone who has worked with her, he said she might be part of a larger probe in which the FBI might be pressuring her for information to nail other people.

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“I can’t believe she would sell information or be ideologically motivated to pass information along. The only thing that makes sense is sloppiness,” he said.

Raphel is 67 and retired from the US foreign service in 2005 after 30 years but came back as an adviser in 2009 when Richard Holbrooke took over as SRAP. In between she was a lobbyist for Cassidy and Associates representing Pakistan.

The Legal Times blog, which tracked disclosures from Cassidy and Associates, reported in November 2009 that Raphel was crafting Pakistan’s lobbying strategy less than a week before her new position was announced as adviser to the SRAP.

She reportedly attended more than 40 meetings, including many at the State Department and on Capitol Hill, on Pakistan’s behalf in the two months before she left the lobbying firm. A filing submitted to the Justice Department showed that the lobbying firm was e-mailing her even after she assumed her new position.

Her detractors are reportedly spread across the US military and the CIA, according to a well-informed source. Apparently, in the intelligence circles, Raphel was known as ‘the bird’ and intensely disliked. The US military lost thousands of soldiers in the Afghanistan war in which Pakistan’s role has been more than dubious, a country she habitually defended.

People like Raphel were meant to get Pakistan to deliver the Taliban for the so-called ‘peace talks’ but they failed miserably while the Pentagon commanders faced defeat and have to explain the 2,350 dead soldiers. When she talked up Pakistan at think tanks in Washington, they were appalled.

“Her ice queen act didn’t go down well with soldiers who were getting shot at, blown up and dying having no idea why any of it was happening,” the source commented. The anti-Pakistan feeling is intense among US veterans of the Afghan war.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has collected $20 billion in US military and civilian aid since 2002, $7.5 billion of which under the Kerry-Lugar was overseen by Raphel. As with all large aid packages, there is patronage and lack of transparency.

During a conference last year at the Middle East Institute in Washington where Raphel was the keynote speaker, Pakistan insiders openly referred to the Kerry-Lugar money as bribe or “the price of doing business in Pakistan.”

As the administrator of USAID, Raphel wielded immense clout. She handed out cash to Pakistanis claiming they were partners in the war against terrorism while the US military and CIA operatives were fighting and dying, often precisely because of Pakistan’s games.

The FBI investigation could be the result of intersection of the many patterns Raphel wove in her career.

-- Seema Sirohi is a senior journalist based in Washington, DC

[vishvak]

..
Conflict of interest doesn’t even begin to describe this sequence especially in light of the law that requires a two-year cooling-off period. In Raphel’s case, the State Department never clarified how she met the requirements of the law.
..
As the news of the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe percolated through Washington, her detractors and supporters have both come out to denounce or defend her.
..
reported in November 2009 that Raphel was crafting Pakistan’s lobbying strategy less than a week before her new position was announced as adviser to the SRAP.

She reportedly attended more than 40 meetings, including many at the State Department and on Capitol Hill, on Pakistan’s behalf in the two months before she left the lobbying firm. A filing submitted to the Justice Department showed that the lobbying firm was e-mailing her even after she assumed her new position.
..
During a conference last year at the Middle East Institute in Washington where Raphel was the keynote speaker, Pakistan insiders openly referred to the Kerry-Lugar money as bribe or “the price of doing business in Pakistan.”
..

American diplomacy at its best, with investigations trooping in after decades of her career, like the police in a Bollywood movie that won't come in and interrupt the narrative. The tone of the article, therefore, doesn't have to be about Indian diplomats 'hating' her but about the Lady Taliban diplomat as part of larger US state policy.