India-US Strategic News and Discussion

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 10 May 2014 19:58

^^That's exactly what I was trying to tell the guy... even pleaded with him that there was no need for it... what can you do? Election season I guess. Everyone's on edge.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 10 May 2014 20:29

Rudradev wrote:Lokesh, the Latinos will be the game changers here. They will be 128 million by 2060 at current projections, far more if they expand non-linearly as immigrant populations often do past tipping point. Already they are OVER 50% of the population in Texas, California and Florida! India should get ahead of the game- businessmen & diplomats should learn Spanish, familiarize themselves with Hispanic culture to engage the Americans of tomorrow.

Whom do Latinos identify with- whites or blacks?

I saw a documentary where there was this British diplomat who interviewed the mayor of Los Angeles who was a Latino. This Latino guy spoke as if he was white.

The whites still overwhelmingly control resources. What gives?

Mukesh.Kumar · Post by **Mukesh.Kumar** » 10 May 2014 23:39

OK, a CT from me. Seem the movie 12Years a Slave. It's a good movie, but seen from an Indian context it's nothing special. It goes onto win Oscars like nobody's business. Now here the CT- Isn't the timing of the movie strange. Shows how in the end US society is just. Even the evil planter is troubled by his internal demons and the white man saves the black man. Of Lenin was alive today he would say "Hollywood is the opiate of the masses in the US.". By dominating the narrative and pop culture the elites in the US have gotten a stranglehold on the masses. The day these blinkers are off, then maybe willl come a situation like Shiv proposed of people learning to think, make do with what they have and get out of the hamster wheel of thoughtless consumption.

Another interesting movie is Wolf of Wall Street which subtly focuses all the blame on rogue greedy traders, whereas it was the regulators, big banks and legislators who were equally if not more guilty for what happened.

Till the day the public narrative is controlled by the elites, there is little hope for Americans.

Maybe the rise of Latinos will be a game changer as Rudradev suggests, only because Spanish media/art/narrative maybe below the radar for WASPs. But then a lot of Latinos try to identify themselves as white. ( Requesting members living in the US to with in with your opinions).

Nandu · Post by **Nandu** » 11 May 2014 03:20

Latinos are a big enough group that they don't really need to identify with any other group. The older generations would've assimilated, adopted English, and see themselves essentially as part of the mainstream anglo. The newer generations are more focused on internal classifications such as Mexican vs. Cuban vs. Guatemalan. It is not a monolithic group.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 11 May 2014 05:12

Nandu wrote:Latinos are a big enough group that they don't really need to identify with any other group. The older generations would've assimilated, adopted English, and see themselves essentially as part of the mainstream anglo. The newer generations are more focused on internal classifications such as Mexican vs. Cuban vs. Guatemalan. It is not a monolithic group.

Indeed, the latinos are fragmented and absent from the discourse worse than the "african-american". While they certainly do vote and influence the political debate there are many well-known instruments that will keep the results skewed regardless of ethnic composition of the country. For example, the creation of the congressional districts. For example:

And these are revised periodically to keep the overall population distribution irrelevant. The next aspect is the "ID laws", job-related constraints, and disenfranchisement methods in general. And of course, on top of everything else is the electoral college.

"Honest" methods like producing more offspring will never increase influence in the US circles of power. Only as an example, the US jewish population is about 5.4M. The Indian population is about 3.5M. That is not such a big difference. How many Israelis have been disrobed? Can you hear the discussion of the release of the sole jewish spy imprisoned for arbitrary unrelated reasons and compare with the fugitive spies from India?

Nothing is changing in a hurry, so don't hold your hopes up. The US is not a country. It is a corporation. If you want influence, work yourself higher up into the hierarchy.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 11 May 2014 10:23

>>Till the day the public narrative is controlled by the elites, there is little hope for Americans.

The "public" narrative will always be controlled by elites, in every society. They are also Americans (or Indians, Chinese, whatever). The only thing that can be changed are those criteria and components which make up the elites. But after that change, what remains will still be "the elite". They will still control the narrative.

That is how AAP can be understood. What criteria and components are Kejriwal going to bring into his elite? We already know what his party's public narrative is going to be. What he is trying to do is to achieve through rhetorical sleight of hand and protest politics what he should instead by trying to do through the hard slog of decades of electoral politics. And this is why he ran away from Delhi, because he knows then he will have to enter the consensus public narrative of not just speaking - removing corruption, improving the lives of the aam aadmi, and reducing economic hardship in general - but actually being responsible for delivery and measurement. Kejriwal and his cronies, hangers on and automaton followers just want the authority not the responsibility, just the power not the accountability.

Sorry, seems I'm OT. Put it down to election fever.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 11 May 2014 11:25

JE Menon wrote:>>Till the day the public narrative is controlled by the elites, there is little hope for Americans.

The "public" narrative will always be controlled by elites, in every society. They are also Americans (or Indians, Chinese, whatever). The only thing that can be changed are those criteria and components which make up the elites. But after that change, what remains will still be "the elite". They will still control the narrative.

That is how AAP can be understood. What criteria and components are Kejriwal going to bring into his elite? We already know what his party's public narrative is going to be. What he is trying to do is to achieve through rhetorical sleight of hand and protest politics what he should instead by trying to do through the hard slog of decades of electoral politics. And this is why he ran away from Delhi, because he knows then he will have to enter the consensus public narrative of not just speaking - removing corruption, improving the lives of the aam aadmi, and reducing economic hardship in general - but actually being responsible for delivery and measurement. Kejriwal and his cronies, hangers on and automaton followers just want the authority not the responsibility, just the power not the accountability.

Sorry, seems I'm OT. Put it down to election fever.

Until otherwise demonstrated, I remain convinced that Kejriwal/AAP were a "saffron revolution" (from the color of the flag, and not its BJP connotation) atttempt that never got anywhere. My understanding is based on the Delhi election/post-delhi election events. Closest I examined was a Jhaadu candidate's progress in the Delhi elections. Havent had the liberty to check up on their fortunes since then due to lousy life-events. The sooner they disappear into irrelevence, the better, IMHO.

Any solution to Indian corruption, or cows on the roads or poverty or anything else will need actual non-elite grass root understanding and support.

Just my poor understanding of the political landscape (ps - the less you have to do with ASHA, the better), which means I am open to being completely wrong as well.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 11 May 2014 12:25

>>I remain convinced that Kejriwal/AAP were a "saffron revolution" (from the color of the flag, and not its BJP connotation) atttempt that never got anywhere.

Yes, that possibility cannot be ruled out - it could be generated from outside, false internal flag, etc. Not necessarily "Western". Typically though they underestimated Indian polity, in that case. But the problem is Kejriwal will be hanging around as a useful idiot for others for some time to come.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 11 May 2014 12:59

JE Menon wrote:>>I remain convinced that Kejriwal/AAP were a "saffron revolution" (from the color of the flag, and not its BJP connotation) atttempt that never got anywhere.

Yes, that possibility cannot be ruled out - it could be generated from outside, false internal flag, etc. Not necessarily "Western". Typically though they underestimated Indian polity, in that case. But the problem is Kejriwal will be hanging around as a useful idiot for others for some time to come.

I have seen funds collection for Kejriwal et al in the US. And the total amount of NGO type money channeled including that collected via invited bhashan and "documentary"" darshan was large and not previously seen in the twenty years that I have come across these type of events. Almost like the mandir wahin banayenge "chanda" that made BJP into a force. In the first collection drives for the ram temple, they managed to scam even my very poor grand mother. Poor villagers, illitrate, barely keeping up with food needs on subsistence farming in a desert. Everyone gave. Today's BJP is a different animal. Lets hope Kejriwal sheds this skin too.

---
An unrelated note to TSJ -- some of us have been to those Rajasthani villages. Others may have been born there. US has nothing on the morality and integrity that still exists there.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 12 May 2014 09:09

JE Menon wrote: Yes, that possibility cannot be ruled out - it could be generated from outside, false internal flag, etc. Not necessarily "Western". Typically though they underestimated Indian polity, in that case. But the problem is Kejriwal will be hanging around as a useful idiot for others for some time to come.

The real relevance of Kejriwal's methods would be in local elections to bodies such as the Bangalore city corporation where politics should play no role while providing services, but they do - aggravation extreme corruption at the bottom rung. The Bangaore city corporation budget is 11,000 crores (Is that 1.8 billion US dollars) and a whole lot of it is skimmed away to line the party coffers of various parties - currently the Congress party. This is where Kejriwal has relevance.

One of the statements I heard from a hard core AAP person is that the national elections simply had to be fought by the AAP to stay politically engaged continuously, even if the party did not have national credentials. I think their hope is that they will win a handful of parliament seats but will be able to show electoral support of at least 5-6% of people, which is a significant number. Those are the figures o look out for.

The way in which the AAP has raised funds has come as a shocker to established parties because funds have come from public donations for which receipts are issued. Some members of my family and some friends have been donors. Bangalore recently notched up bigger donations to AAP than Delhi - which was the largest city donor. But even in Varanasi they managed to collect a few crores from voluntary donations in a few days. That is what has kept their campaign going. Kejriwal's arrogance lies in his knowledge that his fund collections have been totally voluntary from the public and fully accounted for with receipts given to all donors. I would not dismiss the AAP lightly. The number of people who want to pay for people they can see and talk to is higher than most people realise - but we will soon know how that translates into a percentage of votes.

Sorry. OT

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 May 2014 09:20

shiv wrote:
JE Menon wrote: Yes, that possibility cannot be ruled out - it could be generated from outside, false internal flag, etc. Not necessarily "Western". Typically though they underestimated Indian polity, in that case. But the problem is Kejriwal will be hanging around as a useful idiot for others for some time to come.
The real relevance of Kejriwal's methods would be in local elections to bodies such as the Bangalore city corporation where politics should play no role while providing services, but they do - aggravation extreme corruption at the bottom rung. The Bangaore city corporation budget is 11,000 crores (Is that 1.8 billion US dollars) and a whole lot of it is skimmed away to line the party coffers of various parties - currently the Congress party. This is where Kejriwal has relevance.

One of the statements I heard from a hard core AAP person is that the national elections simply had to be fought by the AAP to stay politically engaged continuously, even if the party did not have national credentials. I think their hope is that they will win a handful of parliament seats but will be able to show electoral support of at least 5-6% of people, which is a significant number. Those are the figures o look out for.

.....
Sorry. OT

Shiv,

This is not entirely OT,AAP is the closest to the US, media and all.

The problem with Kejriwal is his Sarah Palin approach to everything from his own housing to governance.
A homegrown AAP might be a good thing, I havent seen the home grown aspect that you have seen. I only see the "Asia Society" parts. As I noted above, AAP can indeed turn into a new BJP, but they have to stand for something beyond just collecting small money. Is there a good place to write more or should we take this offline?

cheers,

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 May 2014 09:33

Thread hijack. Please get back to topic.
thanks

amritk · Post by **amritk** » 12 May 2014 23:23

Re: caste, etc, the US grew to be a great power at least in part because of the superb balance of the 4 varnas there. Fundamentally this is what appeals to so many , including Indian immigrants. Now in the recent past, say 20 years or so, the trader tendencies got the better of the US (e.g. outsourcing to China in exchange for profit, while US workers suffered). Now the US is attempting, or being forced to attempt, a correction or rebalancing. Remains to be seen how successful it will be. By the way, the trader aspect has, in my opinion, been the dominant one in India for many hundreds of years. I have heard that in Japan the traders or pure businesspeople are considered "lowest", after warriors, priests and workers.

Just a comment, hopefully not too far OT.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 May 2014 08:18

Barack Obama and the Monsanto betrayal

by Jon Rappoport
May 7, 2014

www.nomorefakenews.com

Under the selective radar of mainstream media, Barack Obama has been carving out a whole new level of support for Monsanto and other destructive biotech giants.

From Scott Creighton, “Obama Pitches India Model of GM Genocide to Africa”:

“At the G8 Summit held two weeks ago at Camp David, President Obama met with private industry and African heads of state to launch the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a euphemism for monocultured, genetically modified crops and toxic agrochemicals aimed at making poor farmers debt slaves to corporations, while destroying the ecosphere for profit.

“But African civil society wants no part of this latest Monsanto aligned ‘public private partnership.’ Whatever will the progressives do now that their flawless hero has teamed up with their most hated nemesis [Monsanto] to exploit an entire continent like they did to India not that long ago?…

“With a commitment of $3 billion, Obama plans to ‘partner up’ with mega-multinationals like Monsanto, Diageo, Dupont, Cargill, Vodafone, Walmart, Pepsico, Prudential, Syngenta International, and Swiss Re because, as one USAID representative says ‘There are things that only companies can do, like building silos for storage and developing seeds and fertilizers.’

“Of course, that’s an outrageous lie. Private citizens have been building their own silos for centuries. But it’s true that only the biowreck engineers will foist patented seeds and toxic chemicals on Africa.”

Under the guise of replacing the “donor-recipient model” of charity with “smart business development that’s a win-win for everybody,” a new level of corporate-government colonialism is aimed at the continent of Africa. The new and improved strategy means bigger profits for the few and greater suffering and displacement for the many.

Support self-sufficiency for the small farmer? Expand the number of small farms growing nutritious and non-toxic food? Never heard of it. Not on the agenda—except in false propaganda statements and promises.

No, instead, the idea is putting small farmers into debt to Monsanto for GMO seeds and highly toxic herbicides, so they can grow (until they go bankrupt) noxious GMO food crops. Small farms will eventually be snapped up by big ag corporations.

Obama? A warrior against corporations on behalf of the people? It’s long past the time for ripping that false mask away.

During his 2008 campaign for president, Barack Obama transmitted signals that he understood the GMO issue. Several key anti-GMO activists were impressed. They thought Obama, once in the White House, would listen to their concerns and act on them.

These activists weren’t just reading tea leaves. On the campaign trail, Obama said: “Let folks know when their food is genetically modified, because Americans have a right to know what they’re buying.”

Making the distinction between GMO and non-GMO was certainly an indication that Obama, unlike the FDA and USDA, saw there was an important line to draw in the sand.

Beyond that, Obama was promising a new era of transparency in government. He was adamant in assuring that, if elected, his administration wouldn’t do business in “the old way.” He would be “responsive to people’s needs.”

Then came the reality.

After the election, people who had been working to label GMO food and warn the public of its huge dangers were shocked to the core. They saw Obama had been pulling a bait and switch.

After the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA:

At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center.

As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.

As commissioner of the USDA, Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack had set up a national group, the Governors’ Biotechnology Partnership, and had been given a Governor of the Year Award by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto.

As the new Agriculture Trade Representative, who would push GMOs for export, Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist.

As the new counsel for the USDA, Ramona Romero, who had been corporate counsel for another biotech giant, DuPont.

As the new head of the USAID, Rajiv Shah, who had previously worked in key positions for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of GMO agriculture research.

We should also remember that Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, once worked for the Rose law firm. That firm was counsel to Monsanto.

Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. Kagan, as federal solicitor general, had previously argued for Monsanto in the Monsanto v. Geertson seed case before the Supreme Court.

The deck was stacked. Obama hadn’t simply made honest mistakes. Obama hadn’t just failed to exercise proper oversight in selecting appointees. He wasn’t just experiencing a failure of short-term memory. He was staking out territory on behalf of Monsanto and other GMO corporate giants.

And now let us look at what key Obama appointees have wrought for their true bosses. Let’s see what GMO crops have walked through the open door of the Obama presidency.

Monsanto GMO alfalfa.

Monsanto GMO sugar beets.

Monsanto GMO Bt soybean.

Coming soon: Monsanto’s GMO sweet corn.

Syngenta GMO corn for ethanol.

Syngenta GMO stacked corn.

Pioneer GMO soybean.

Syngenta GMO Bt cotton.

Bayer GMO cotton.

ATryn, an anti-clotting agent from the milk of transgenic goats.

A GMO papaya strain.

And perhaps, soon, genetically engineered salmon and apples.

This is an extraordinary parade. It, in fact, makes Barack Obama the most GMO-dedicated politician in America.

You don’t attain that position through errors or oversights. Obama was, all along, a stealth operative on behalf of Monsanto, biotech, GMOs, and corporate control of the future of agriculture.

power outside the matrix

From this perspective, Michelle Obama’s campaign for gardens and clean, organic, nutritious food is nothing more than a diversion, a cover story floated to obscure what her husband has actually been doing.

Nor is it coincidental that two of the Obama’s biggest supporters, Bill Gates and George Soros, purchased 900,000 and 500,000 shares of Monsanto, respectively, in 2010.

We are talking about a president who presented himself, and was believed by many to be, an extraordinary departure from politics as usual.

Not only was that a wrong assessment, Obama was lying all along. He was, and he still is, Monsanto’s man in Washington.

To those people who fight for GMO labeling and the outlawing of GMO crops, and against the decimation of the food supply and the destruction of human health, but still believe Obama is a beacon in bleak times:

Wake up.

Sources include:

http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/02/02/m ... nt-part-2/

http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/09/m ... overnment/

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... fied-foods

http://fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2011/f ... -no-monsa/

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/g ... red-foods/

http://news.yahoo.com/not-altruistic-tr ... 00462.html

Jon Rappoport

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 May 2014 08:19

Productive but Joyless? Narendra Modi and U.S.-India Relations
carnegieendowment.org

Ashley J. Tellis Article May 12, 2014

If the exit polls in India are to be believed, it is likely that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Narendra Modi, will be India’s next prime minister. Modi, a chief minister who continues to be excoriated for the communal riots that occurred on his watch in the state of Gujarat in 2002, has been vaulted to the status of a national leader viably staking a claim to govern the world’s largest democracy. The fact that he has come this far in a relatively short period of time remains fundamentally an indictment of the poor performance of the incumbent Congress Party–led government, especially during its second term in office.

To be sure, there are still uncertainties about whether Modi will win big or whether he will be compelled to expand his current National Democratic Alliance to attain a majority in the 16th Lok Sabha. And whether Modi will be able to satisfy the Indian electorate’s extraordinarily high expectations remains to be seen. After all, the Indian people not only expect that he will return the country to its previous path of high economic growth but also anticipate that he will remedy the enormous challenges of unemployment, rehabilitate India’s fraying institutions of state, correct the maladies of misgovernance, and even provide new direction to India’s flailing foreign relations. In the best of times, this would be a tall order. Today, these ambitions are almost certainly beyond reach—at least more than can be achieved in a single term at the helm.

Modi’s ascension to the office of prime minister is also being watched closely by India’s friends and partners who have often been chagrined by New Delhi’s recent failure to play the confident role that they had imagined would accompany India’s emergence on the global stage. Nowhere have these expectations been dashed more grievously than in the United States, where successive administrations since 1998 have attempted to rejuvenate bilateral ties in the hope that India would become an effective strategic partner. Many Americans and Indians alike have concluded that the partnership has flagged considerably—though obviously not entirely—in recent times because of the political miasma in New Delhi.

Whatever else may be believed about Modi, there is universal agreement that he is a decisive leader. The possibility that such an individual may now take over the reins of government in India, then, raises new hope that the U.S.-Indian relationship may yet find its groove and realize the potential that former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee saw when he described the two countries as “natural allies,” courageously pushing aside the accumulated shibboleths of some fifty years.

In many ways, Modi, with his natural assertiveness, may be even better positioned than Vajpayee to rebuild the bilateral relationship. Particularly if he secures the overwhelming mandate he has sought in the recently concluded polls, Modi is well-placed to harness the remarkable commitment the United States has made to aid the rise of Indian power since former president George W. Bush’s term in office. It would be wise for officials in Washington, therefore, to engage Modi concertedly in the aftermath of the Indian elections for several reasons, including making up for keeping him at arm’s length until very recently.

Old Grudges Die Hard

Obviously, engagement will not come easily because of the uncomfortable fact that Washington and Modi managed to start out on the wrong foot. The complications attending Modi’s personal history are likely to affect the future trajectory of U.S.-Indian relations in unhelpful ways.

In 2005, provoked by allegations about Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, the United States revoked his visa under an obscure law on religious freedom. This action bruised Modi personally. And it has produced the awkward situation in which for the first time India, a fellow democracy and strategic partner of the United States, could be governed by a prime minister who resents a country that otherwise serves as an inspiration for his middle-class political base at home and an important source of funding and policy ideas.

The fact that Modi has never been charged, let alone convicted, in an Indian court for his involvement in the Gujarat riots only makes his bitterness at the U.S. action more implacable. He believes that he has been unfairly penalized on allegations that have not held up in his own country’s judicial system.

Today, both Modi and the United States are trapped in a catch-22: in understandable pique, Modi has declared that he will never apply for an American visa again—and there is no way to revalidate his now-expired visa if he will not apply anew. This constraint would not prevent Modi from visiting the United States in an official capacity as India’s prime minister because he would be automatically eligible for an A-class visa as a head of government. Yet this technicality is unlikely to satisfy Modi because the U.S. State Department’s previous revocation of his personal visa, coupled with what has been a deliberate U.S. distance from him over the years, remains an ingrained slight that will be hard to mollify once he has achieved validation through victory—especially if the outcome of India’s national election is decisive.

The prospect for a dramatic resuscitation of U.S.-Indian relations under a Modi government in India, therefore, looks less than promising, despite the fact that Modi is exactly the kind of assertive personality who could improve New Delhi’s outreach to Washington at will. Unless he were to reinvent himself as a latter-day Vajpayee bent on transforming bilateral ties, this shift is unlikely to happen. Modi has undoubtedly made careful efforts throughout his election campaign to emphasize the continuing worth of Vajpayee’s legacy on several issues. And where the United States and India are concerned, he has declared plainly, even if not entirely persuasively, that “relations between the two countries cannot be determined or be even remotely influenced by incidents related to individuals.” On this count, given the depth of his personal animus, there is little reason to take him at face value. Where international engagement is concerned, Modi is mostly likely to remember those who welcomed him while he was in the political wilderness—and that means Japan, Israel, Singapore, and even, with qualifications, China.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, at any rate, has sought to signal its willingness to let bygones be bygones, declaring through the congressional testimony of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal that it “look[s] forward to engagement with the new government [in India] that will take . . . [the bilateral relationship] to new heights.”

While this constitutes an important overture, it is unlikely to win Modi’s heart and mind. What would make the difference to him is either a public American expression of regret for the visa revocation or an open personal welcome to the United States. However, it is politically impossible for Washington to do the former, and it is unlikely that the latter will happen before Modi is clearly elevated to the position of prime minister.

National Interests, Strategic Consequences

While it is doubtful that a Prime Minister Modi would go out of his way to spite the United States, he would not set out to consciously ingratiate himself with the United States either. If bilateral relations do receive a direct boost, it will be because he views undertaking certain actions as necessary for advancing India’s own interests. And because Narendra Modi is, above all else, a committed nationalist who cares deeply about Indian interests, it is not unreasonable to expect that he will do some things for India that would bring clear benefits to the United States. The improvements he promises, this time for India’s own sake, in the structural factors that have impeded a transformation in bilateral ties offer the greatest reason for hope.

In this context, Washington should remember that a strong India is in America’s strategic interest on its own merits. Especially in the face of an increasingly assertive China, the United States benefits from the presence of a robust democratic power that is willing to and capable of independently balancing Beijing’s rising influence in Asia.

Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s deep commitment to transforming U.S.-Indian relations, the effort to do so lost momentum during his second term in office. A perverse turn in India’s economic policies (and fortunes) and a slowing in defense and strategic cooperation, which until then had been a key driver propelling the strategic partnership upward, largely accounted for the stagnation.

There is every likelihood that a Modi government would alter Indian policies for the better in both those areas—with U.S.-Indian relations thereby profiting at least as an externality, if not a directly intended consequence. Building up India’s defense capabilities rapidly and purposefully is a case in point. Modi already understands that India’s defense procurement and the higher-level management of its defense policy have both suffered grave reverses during A. K. Antony’s tenure as defense minister, which began in 2006. If Modi becomes prime minister, he will quickly become entirely convinced that it is not India’s nuclear doctrine that requires speedy change—he has intimated that already—but rather its conventional military capabilities. The modernization of those forces has fallen dangerously behind schedule. India’s defense procurement processes are badly clogged, and the failure to create a well-educated cadre of military leaders as well as better civil-military relations has cost the country dearly.

If the next government resolutely moves to correct these faults, U.S.-Indian relations will immediately benefit. For example, any Indian decisions to acquire additional U.S. military equipment (especially by closing those contracts that are close to fruition) will quickly improve the combat capabilities of the Indian armed forces while simultaneously strengthening the U.S. position as a desirable supplier of advanced technology. Both these outcomes are self-evidently in Washington’s interest.

Similar benefits will be reaped if a proposed defense trade and technology initiative comes to fruition. This initiative is an effort to strengthen bilateral ties among both private defense firms in the United States and India and the two countries’ militaries. If it is consummated, India’s defense research organizations and its emerging private defense companies will be linked more closely to the best American developers of cutting-edge systems, making the prospects brighter for future defense cooperation.

If a Modi regime can make quick decisions to enlarge the opportunities for more Indian officers to enroll in American professional military education, permit Indian officers to be cross-posted in the U.S. combatant commands, sign the so-called “foundational agreements” on interoperability and safeguards that the Vajpayee government agreed to in principle, and create new avenues for greater American investment in India’s defense industry, it will produce important gains for India while directly benefiting American strategic interests.

The United States would also profit from India’s continued economic reform and its return to high growth.

Modi knows better than any Indian politician that his success will be judged by the extent to which he can rehabilitate India’s economic fortunes. If he is elevated to high office in this election, it will be mainly because Indian voters, disenchanted by the country’s recent economic slowdown, have put their trust in him individually rather than in his party, hoping that he will be their ticket to collective success.

Not surprisingly, then, Modi has assiduously campaigned (at least at the national level) on the universally acknowledged necessities of returning to high growth, providing good governance, increasing employment, and empowering India’s states. Granted, toward the end of what has been a vicious electoral campaign by previous standards, Modi succumbed to the temptation of employing nativist tropes in eastern and northeast India and criticizing the Election Commission, which directs and controls the entire election process—actions that have intensified concerns among those constituencies that fear what they perceive to be Modi’s parochialism and dictatorial tendencies. And his relentless invocation of “no red tape, only red carpet” for investors has often given rise to the expectation that his economic policies will favor primarily big corporate houses, both Indian and foreign.

But after the election season, if his record in Gujarat after 2002 is anything to go by, Modi will likely return to the core themes of his national campaign: enlarging opportunities to accelerate national investment levels, revitalizing agriculture, improving infrastructure, removing regulatory constrictions, and pushing financial devolution in order to fulfill his electoral promises.

Modi clearly recognizes the benefits of institutionalizing wider and more efficient markets in India, but he also recognizes the limits to which he can go in light of the country’s statist inheritance. These boundaries will become all the more pronounced because Modi is a genuine outsider to the political class in New Delhi in a way that no previous chief minister who took the prime minister’s office has been. And he is, equally, an outsider in his own BJP, whose old guard he determinedly defanged in the prelude to the current elections.

Modi, therefore, will create space for greater private initiative in combating India’s economic problems. He will seek to improve the nation’s investment climate through more predictable, transparent, and inviting economic policies. But these virtues will be intended to appeal to a wide range of domestic actors and will not automatically translate into a free ride for either “India Inc.” or corporate America.

Yet, to the degree that India’s economic performance gathers steam as a result of Modi’s policies and his efforts to empower the Indian states create new competitive laboratories of economic reform, U.S. national interests are well-served. Any effort to enlarge India’s markets or make them more efficient through internal reforms will stimulate domestic growth and create expanded opportunities for bilateral trade and investment. If India’s economic strength and political confidence grow as a result, U.S. strategic aims in Asia and globally will be advanced.

The same will be true if Modi spends much of his foreign policy capital to rejuvenate India’s “Look East” strategy, a policy begun in 1991 that promised closer economic and strategic engagement with countries in East and Southeast Asia. A deeper Indian relationship with Japan, Singapore, and the other trading states of East Asia will bind New Delhi closer to countries that are otherwise American allies and partners. These states will profit from any renewed Indian engagement in their region, in the process advancing U.S. interests even if doing so was not India’s primary intention. Even an effort by Modi to improve Sino-Indian ties would not necessarily undermine American aims in Asia. Modi is astute enough to recognize the nature of the threats posed by rising Chinese power to Indian security, so it is unlikely that improved relations between Beijing and New Delhi would ever come to constitute strategic “bandwagoning” against Washington.

Even though Modi’s personal feelings toward Washington are not particularly warm today, he is not likely to go out of his way to spite the United States out of personal pique. In his official dealings with his American counterparts, Modi will be exceptionally mindful of what Indian national interests demand—and will do nothing less than what is mandated by those requirements. If both sides can avoid stepping on each other’s toes, especially in South Asia—an arena in which Modi will be fiercely protective of India’s prerogatives—the United States could find itself in a potentially productive bilateral relationship with India. This outcome will ensue as long as Modi’s government pursues domestic and foreign policies that end up creating new opportunities for the United States, even if the U.S.-India affiliation is at the same time stripped of the strong emotional commitments associated with the overtures pursued by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. The absence of driving personalities in the Obama administration who are committed to deepening the relationship with India makes such an outcome all the more likely.

In other words, even if Washington’s expected postelection overtures to Modi leave him unmoved, his government in New Delhi will be one that at its best yields benefits for the bilateral relationship while still remaining quite detached and distant from the United States. If his time in Gujarat is any indication, Modi clearly knows, and often speaks, his mind. His government will possess a defined center of power, Modi himself. And it will be able to implement difficult decisions with purposefulness, even ruthlessness.

The Dangers of Cynicism

If the immediate future of U.S.-Indian relations is thus likely to be more businesslike than warm, are there dangers lurking that could send this relationship into a tailspin? On this issue, there are arguably reasons for hope.

Historically, an important element that has ensured the stability of bilateral relations has been India’s enduring commitment to liberal, democratic politics at home. This commitment, which has been manifested through both constitutional government and the protection of India’s myriad social diversities, has often been questioned. But the vision of religious tolerance, the protection of minorities, and the necessity for some forms of affirmative action have all durably survived.

Modi’s ascension to center stage in Indian politics, because so many observers continue to associate him with the Gujarat riots, has revived fears in India and in the United States that India’s minorities may once again face elevated dangers. Were the events in Gujarat in 2002 to be repeated somewhere in India, the risks to U.S.-Indian relations would indeed be great and India’s international reputation would be severely besmirched.

The broad contours of Modi’s current electoral campaign suggest that he is mindful of such pitfalls. Although he had plentiful opportunities to campaign on a virulent Hindutva, or Hindu nationalist, platform, he generally eschewed that temptation and instead focused resolutely on issues of growth, development, and governance. Of course, his critics are wont to suggest that this strategy is aimed merely at securing the nation’s highest office from whence he would launch a renewed campaign against India’s minorities all the more dangerously.

At present, there is no way to discern the truth conclusively. On this, as on many other matters, including the details of Modi’s economic and social policies, only time will tell.

Modi may well continue to harbor rigid Hindu nationalist beliefs that are anathema to many of his own countrymen. That is a privilege offered to him by India’s democratic order. But it does not matter.

What is solely relevant is his behavior in power. And on this count, there is reason to believe that Modi is unlikely to provoke any divisiveness that undermines his larger economic and political ambitions. His own evolution as a politician, the structural constraints imposed by India’s democratic system, and his recognition of India’s complexities from the vantage point of the prime ministership all suggest that he will avoid any single-minded pursuit of sectarian policies.

More to the point, it is reassuring that Modi has reiterated both in public and in private that “the only holy book of the government is the Indian Constitution.” If he acts according to its writ while in office, the worst fears of his detractors will not come to pass. If he does not, he will be booted out of power—and will, in fact, be stymied in the implementation of his agenda long before that happens. If he is elected with the mandate he seeks, it will be because the people of India want him to repair a faltering economy and a rudderless government, not to impose a parochial agenda that most of them do not share. If Modi misreads that verdict to mean something else, he will not be doing himself and his cause any favors.

From an American perspective, therefore, U.S. administration officials and members of Congress should not rush to premature conclusions about Modi’s presumed future domestic policies. That is especially true in an environment in which his detractors have already launched furtive and not-so-furtive campaigns in the United States aimed at persuading official Washington to view Modi as a threat to India and to American interests.

Similar caution is justified in the case of contingencies involving Pakistan. For several decades now, India has been at the receiving end of terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil—some of it state sanctioned if not actually state directed. The traditional Indian response to such attacks consisted of forbearance, given that successive Indian prime ministers from P. V. Narasimha Rao onward concluded that any retaliatory responses could produce military escalation that would make the cure worse than the disease. With a contentious personality like Modi at the helm of affairs, many Pakistan-based jihadi groups would be greatly tempted to engage in terrorist attacks in India in hopes of inciting a violent response by New Delhi that fuels a larger cataclysm in the subcontinent.

How a Modi government would react to such provocations is unknown. It is likely that not even Modi himself knows today and that he would not be sure until actually faced with that moment of truth in office. To be sure, India has many more retaliatory options short of all-out war than it did during a 2001–2002 military standoff with Pakistan and the 2008 terrorist attacks in Bombay. But international observers should not suppose that a Modi government will be automatically inclined toward more kinetic responses to Pakistan in the event of a terrorist attack emerging from that country. In such circumstances, and despite his desire to squarely confront terrorism, Modi, just like his predecessors, will have to make tough decisions about whether to risk subverting his focus on restoring economic growth for renewed regional conflict.

In fact, the larger danger in a possible Modi policy toward Pakistan is that he will choose to ignore Islamabad, either because of his concentration on economic renewal at home or because he views Pakistan, with its myriad problems, as marginal to India’s destiny. That decision would create incentives for the “deep state” in Pakistan to rely even more heavily on jihadi groups. It would also cost India the opportunity to accelerate regional economic integration, which would increase Indian prosperity and provide Islamabad with incentives for constructive engagement with New Delhi, thereby enhancing India’s safety.

Precisely because such eventualities represent the most serious threat to U.S. interests in South Asia today, the Obama administration ought to reach out publicly and generously to Modi as soon as it becomes clear that the Indian nation has chosen him as its next prime minister. A congratulatory call from Obama to Modi followed by a visit to India by a U.S. cabinet member or higher-ranking official would go a long way. These overtures will not make up for the lost opportunity to engage Modi while he climbed the national stage or efface his accumulated grievances against Washington overnight. But they would be the necessary first step toward developing a relationship with a leader who will govern India for the next five years.

High Stakes, High Gains

Whatever his present misgivings, Modi will realize upon taking office that a fruitful relationship with the United States serves India’s interests and vice versa. At a time when India remains continually challenged by Pakistan’s growing weakness, China’s rising strength, the pervasive fragility of many smaller states along its periphery (including Afghanistan), and mounting threats to several global regimes of importance to New Delhi, U.S.-Indian cooperation is not optional but necessary. The benefits of friendly relations with the United States, still the world’s only superpower, should make this conclusion inescapable to India.

Sustaining such collaboration will require considerable dexterity on both sides. In New Delhi, it will require a willingness to engage with the United States on multiple fronts, including by proposing a robust agenda for diplomatic, strategic, and economic cooperation in the next U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue. In Washington, it will demand extraordinary personal outreach to a miffed Modi, given both his past encounter with U.S. policy and the larger American stakes in India’s success, not to mention the importance of promoting peace and prosperity within Southern Asia writ large. Thinking about India in strategic terms will be essential for the success of this endeavor.

Only a successful reciprocity of this sort can slowly improve what could otherwise become a productive yet joyless bilateral relationship that comes to represent a lost opportunity for both countries.

About the South Asia Program

The Carnegie South Asia Program informs policy debates relating to the region’s security, economy, and political development. From the war in Afghanistan to Pakistan’s internal dynamics to U.S. engagement with India, the Program’s renowned team of experts offer in-depth analysis derived from their unique access to the people and places defining South Asia’s most critical challenges.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 May 2014 08:30

shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/05/12/india_modi_reject_religious_persecution_visa

Can the U.S. Embrace India, Welcome Modi, and Reject Religious Persecution?
by William Inboden, shadow.foreignpolicy.com
May 12th 2014

This Friday, the world's largest democracy will announce its election results. India's slow motion balloting has been taking place over several weeks, in an exercise that is both a marvel of logistics and a compelling display of self-government in a stunningly diverse society. Most indications are that, after the votes are counted and the coalition negotiations wrapped up, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will emerge as India's next prime minister.

Modi's likely win also poses a challenge for American foreign policy. As Jim Mann, an author in residence at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, India "will probably elect as its next prime minister a politician who for nearly a decade has been prohibited from setting foot on U.S. soil." This stems from the 2005 decision by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deny Modi a visa to visit the United States because of his role in the massacre of over 1,000 -- and possibly over 2,000 -- Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002. In her decision Rice concurred with the recommendation of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom and invoked section 604 of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) which provides for visa denials of any foreign officials responsible for "particularly severe violations of religious freedom."

I have a personal perspective on this, having served as one of the Congressional staff authors of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, and then several years later having worked for Secretary Rice at the State Department. It is an interesting experience in governance and civics, to say the least, to participate in the writing of a bill at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue and then later participate in the implementation of it at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue (or in this case the Foggy Bottom annex). At the time of drafting the bill in 1998, we could hardly have imagined that the only time the visa ban provision would be invoked would be against a chief minister of a state government in India. Suffice it to say that while working on State's Policy Planning Staff in 2005, I supported the decision to ban Modi. I thought at the time, and still think, it was a fair and important step to take in response to some egregious acts of religious intolerance, of which the Gujarat massacres were the most visible and heinous. The visa ban also undercut the canard that the United States only advocates for persecuted Christians and helped demonstrate that American support for international religious freedom applies to all faiths, including solidarity with Muslims.

Visa bans have emerged in recent years as a favored tool of American foreign policy. The passage of the Magnitsky Act and now the Obama Administration and European Union's blacklisting of certain Russian officials in the midst of the Ukraine crisis are current examples. At its best, a visa ban provides a calibrated and targeted way to advance a particular policy priority while minimizing collateral diplomatic damage. Other times a visa ban can be less effective, either as a poor alternative for more creative and robust policies or an empty symbolic gesture. To be most effective, visa bans should be one part of a comprehensive strategy, rather than a substitute for one.

In the case of India, I agree with Mann and many others that it is time to lift the visa ban on Modi. The reasons are several. Foremost is that India is one of the most important strategic relationships the United States has. After the stagnation and drift in U.S.-India ties of the last few years (for which the Singh Government and the Obama administration both bear responsibility), Modi's likely election presents an opportunity for a fresh start in the relationship, especially if he follows through on his promised economic reforms and shares American concerns about responding to China's regional assertiveness. Modi may not be the leader we want for India, but he will likely be the leader we get. Additionally, on the issue of religious toleration itself, the visa ban has outlived its effectiveness. Twelve years after the Gujarat massacres, there is little evidence that Modi's continued blacklisting will do much to protect religious freedom in India.

But lifting the visa ban alone would be insufficient. The Obama administration should couple this with a series of other specific measures that show America's willingness to work with Modi does not diminish our concern for religious freedom. While Modi has moderated some of his rhetoric, regrettably he seems to still embrace some of the more intolerant and toxic strains of Hindu nationalism. Many of India's Muslims and Christians in particular fear that a Modi government could bring them increased discrimination and even persecution. The Obama administration should start communicating to India now its support for religious toleration, and should start developing specific policy initiatives to support religious freedom in India.

Unfortunately this is an administration that, notwithstanding a couple of speeches by President Obama and chief of staff Denis McDonough, has done regrettably little to promote religious liberty abroad. A good start would be heeding the calls of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) and many others to appoint a new Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. This position has been unfilled since October, and has stood vacant for over half of the Obama administration's entire tenure in office. If religious freedom doesn't even have its chief advocate inside the State Department, it won't have any priority in American foreign policy.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 13 May 2014 09:01

Above article advocates an EJ position. Modi should work to actively ensure that any and all actions of the US in "developing policies to support religious freedom in India" meets its logical conclusion of termination.

Make no mistake the target of the US will be Modi and the attack vector is going to be "religious persecution of minorities".

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 13 May 2014 09:07

That Ashley Tellis farticle is laughable. Wants Modi and India to be a US lackey. Everything about what a Modi government should do for the US. And what will the US do in return - personal phone call from Ombaba, high level cabinet official visit. ROTFL. Tellis is a piece of work.

The dealings with the US should be strictly transactional. Nothing more. When it benefits us do it, when it benefits only the US at our cost, don't.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 13 May 2014 09:14

merlin wrote:That Ashley Tellis farticle is laughable. Wants Modi and India to be a US lackey. Everything about what a Modi government should do for the US. And what will the US do in return - personal phone call from Ombaba, high level cabinet official visit. ROTFL. Tellis is a piece of work.

The dealings with the US should be strictly transactional. Nothing more. When it benefits us do it, when it benefits only the US at our cost, don't.

Merlin, well said. Tellis was by the way, one of the signees asking Indians not to vote for Modi in a recent farticle/press release by leftists in the US. He was also one of the jerks who was pontificating to us about how the IAF choosing the MMRCA was a step back.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 May 2014 09:30

Ashley "Tell-us" is a buffoon,who as ell said above lectures us on what we should do to the US,genuflect,bow,scrape,prostrate and drop our pants like rent-boy Pak,and enjoy the rogering,squealing in delight! One sincerely hopes that when Mr.Modi and the NDA take over,India will call "a spade a spade".

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 13 May 2014 11:10

Karan M wrote:
merlin wrote:That Ashley Tellis farticle is laughable. Wants Modi and India to be a US lackey. Everything about what a Modi government should do for the US. And what will the US do in return - personal phone call from Ombaba, high level cabinet official visit. ROTFL. Tellis is a piece of work.

The dealings with the US should be strictly transactional. Nothing more. When it benefits us do it, when it benefits only the US at our cost, don't.
Merlin, well said. Tellis was by the way, one of the signees asking Indians not to vote for Modi in a recent farticle/press release by leftists in the US. He was also one of the jerks who was pontificating to us about how the IAF choosing the MMRCA was a step back.

Karan, the anti Modi signatory is a different Ashley Tellis. Gay leftist professor who was sacked from a humanities department at IIT. This Tellis is a US based think tanker, US citizen who has worked for GOTUS. Obviously pushes for US interest first, as with nuke and MMRCA deals, but I have good info from a State Dept source that he is more pro India than most others in the Washington establishment (may not be saying much but there it is).

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 13 May 2014 12:26

merlin wrote:That Ashley Tellis farticle is laughable. Wants Modi and India to be a US lackey. Everything about what a Modi government should do for the US. And what will the US do in return - personal phone call from Ombaba, high level cabinet official visit. ROTFL. Tellis is a piece of work.

The dealings with the US should be strictly transactional. Nothing more. When it benefits us do it, when it benefits only the US at our cost, don't.

The article is directed at the US establishment. It is not a wish list directed at India or Modi. Tellis is trying to regain his influence with the SD which he had during the time if the nuclear deal.

partha · Post by **partha** » 13 May 2014 12:45

Rudradev wrote: Karan, the anti Modi signatory is a different Ashley Tellis. Gay leftist professor who was sacked from a humanities department at IIT. .

Anti-Modi Tellis is also a pedophile. Read this puke worthy article. http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazin ... 61607.ece?

Man-boy love could be a beautiful thing

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 May 2014 13:53

Damn, there's more than one?!!!

This academic would fit right in to the Af-Pak scenario. Perhaps he should apply for a job at Peshawar University, where the songs of peach-bottomed and porcelain-cheeked boys dominate the poetic discourse.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 13 May 2014 13:57

Rudradev wrote:Karan, the anti Modi signatory is a different Ashley Tellis. Gay leftist professor who was sacked from a humanities department at IIT. This Tellis is a US based think tanker, US citizen who has worked for GOTUS. Obviously pushes for US interest first, as with nuke and MMRCA deals, but I have good info from a State Dept source that he is more pro India than most others in the Washington establishment (may not be saying much but there it is).

Thanks RD! BTW where art thou, not seen your posts for a while now. Hope all's well.

This article though by the other Ashley Tellis, is still striking in its belief that India must somehow kowtow to the US in all things. Disagree with him there.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 13 May 2014 15:24

Rudradev wrote:but I have good info from a State Dept source that he is more pro India than most others in the Washington establishment (may not be saying much but there it is).

If he is pro India then I can well imagine what the opinions of the rest of the nest of snakes are.

Uttam · Post by **Uttam** » 13 May 2014 19:42

For whatever is its worth.........

Obama Praises India for Holding National Election

President Barack Obama is congratulating India on its national election and says that country has set an example for the rest of the world.

In a statement, Obama praises India for holding the largest democratic election in history. He's calling it "a vibrant demonstration of our shared values of diversity and freedom."

Obama says the U.S. looks forward to India's formation of a new government after election results come in. He says the U.S. will work closely with India's next government.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 May 2014 20:08

Spouses of Some H-1B Visa Holders to Be Allowed to Work

Spouses of H-1B visa holders being sponsored for a green card by their employers will be allowed to work in the U.S. as part of a new initiative by the Obama administration to attract high-skilled foreign workers.

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced Tuesday that the administration plans this and other revisions to regulations for the H-1B and other skilled-worker visas.

Mr. Mayorkas said the goal was twofold: to "encourage highly skilled, specially trained individuals to remain in the United States" and to maintain U.S. "competitiveness with other countries that attract skilled foreign workers and offer employment authorization for spouses."

Roughly 3.5% of Indians in India have an education that is "college and above"
66% of Indian Americans and 100% of H1b visa holders who are sponsored for green cards have an education corresponding to "college and above"

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 May 2014 21:21

Now they are showing full J&K as part of India:

In March, a report to the U.S. Congress by a specialist in U.S. immigration policy, Ruth Wasem, noted the 2010 Indian Supreme Court ruling and said that if Modi were to become prime minister he would be covered by diplomatic immunity and qualify for a visa.

Wasem, a researcher for the Congressional Research Service, said Obama has authority under the U.S. immigration act to deny entry to anyone who has committed "crimes against humanity or other serious human violations of human rights, or who attempted or conspired to do so."

Since no case has been proven against Modi, however, this is unlikely. One congressional aide said Modi could visit as early as September for the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Ashley Tellis, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that if Modi were elected, Secretary of State John Kerry should visit India as soon as possible and Modi should be invited to the United States.

"I think the Obama administration will reach out to him if he is elected as prime minister as it would the leader of any other friendly state," Tellis said.

"Whatever one thinks of Modi, India matters to U.S. national interests - and the administration should take its bearings from that fact when engaging Modi," he said.

Dan Twining of the German Marshall Fund policy group said the United States needs India as "a strong southern anchor of the Asian balance of power" and "both should look to the future."

Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have not taken a position on the Modi visa issue, but said it was important for Washington to press India's new government to end impunity and promote freedom of expression.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/ ... Y120140512

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 13 May 2014 22:20

I dont understand these idiots. Any talk of Visa and/for Modi is nothing but great insult to India and Indian. Great thinker in SD already know Taxi Driver Union's intellectual support is more important than any nation state. Changing course now is not a sign of wisdom or confidence.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 13 May 2014 22:29

Further, visas are obsolete in the age of the hologram. Set up an Obama hologram in the PMO, and a Modi hologram in the WH, and the two can talk to their heart's content. Would cut quite a bit from the travel budget

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 May 2014 22:33

X-Post....

chaanakya wrote:Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar? America tayyar
Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN | May 13, 2014, 10.04 AM IST

WASHINGTON: Even as exit polls in India pointed to a prospective Narendra Modi-led NDA/BJP government, President Obama on Monday set the tone for continuity in US-India ties, saying he looks forward to the formation of a new government once election results are (formally) announced and to working closely with India's next administration.

In a separate statement that went lock-step with the White House message, the state department also said it looks forward "to working with the leaders chosen by the Indian people to advance this important partnership and to set an ambitious agenda."

Neither statement referred to the exit polls or to Modi by name, pending formal announcement of the election results, and the parliamentary process that will pitchfork the 14th Prime Minister of India into office sometime next week. But the sentiment in the messages, released even as exit poll projects were flashing a victory for Modi-led BJP/NDA, was unmistakable: Washington will do business with whoever the people the India will elect.

"India has set an example for the world in holding the largest democratic election in history, a vibrant demonstration of our shared values of diversity and freedom," President Obama extolled in his statement, even as the administration in recent weeks has begun walking back the punitive approach some its human rights flag-bearers pushed it into taking. This group did not see the same kind of merit in Modi being elected thrice by the voters of Gujarat, a state the size of Italy or France.

The state department, under whose directions Modi's existing visa was first revoked, followed by gratuitous denials of a prospective visa even when he did not apply for a new one, also gushed about the just-concluded polls, saying they are an "inspiring example of the power of the democratic process in action, and the United States, like so many others around the world, has great admiration and respect for the vibrancy, diversity, and resilience of India's democracy."

But going above the recent diplomatic skirmishes between the two sides, the US President emphasized a long-term perspective in his statement, saying the United States and India have "developed a strong friendship and comprehensive partnership over the last two decades, which has made our citizens safer and more prosperous and which has enhanced our ability to work together to solve global challenges."

"We look forward to the formation of a new government once election results are announced and to working closely with India's next administration to make the coming years equally transformative," he added.

The Obama administration has in recent weeks been striving to erase its ostracization of Narendra Modi, first by directing the US ambassador in New Delhi to initiate contact with him, and then virtually withdrawing her as it emerged that the Gujarat chief minister might lead his party to victory and become India's next Prime Minister. Although the policy to blacklist Modi was initiated during the Bush administration, it continued under the Obama-Clinton-Kerry dispensation, reportedly under pressure from the human rights lobby inside the administration, in Congress, and in the country's NGO community, including some Indian and Indian-American leftists.

But with a Modi victory looking imminent now as per exit polls, the US administration will have to do some heavy lifting to remove the baggage that has piled up over the past decade with the Indian right. Many of the BJP stalwarts with whom it did business have either been sidelined or have faded gently into the twilight.

In fact, the administration is having to dust up those who knew Modi in his younger days before he became an "untouchable" because of strictures from the human rights crowd.

One such analyst, former State Department official Walter Andersen, told ToI in an interview last week that he expected Modi to steer India closer to Japan and China, in keeping with Hindu nationalism traditional look east policy. "I don't think he is going to ignore US, but this is not what his focus is going to be," Dr Andersen, who co-wrote a seminal book on RSS, said. "But if I had to make a guess as to the first country he will visit, it will be Japan."

Andersen also contested the view in some quarters that Modi's rise would mean greater saffronization of India with the RSS running amok. He cited the work of American political scientists Susan and Lloyd Rudolph who argued that any group that comes to power in a country as socially complex as India has to move toward the ideological center; if it does not, it will not come to power or stay in power. Modi, Andersen maintained, will be move interested in development than pushing the Hindutva agenda.

Another former US official who facilitated Modi's US visit in the early 1990s as a state department guest said Modi struck him during that trip as "pragmatic rather than a Sangh Parivar ideologue, despite his RSS history."

Very odd the Obama Admin crusade against the Indian right. Something doesn't fit the facts.
It looks like a fight based on domestic politics of the US and not what it is made out to be.
Its a Democrats vs Republicans fight being protrayed as US admin against religious freedom.

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 13 May 2014 22:36

@Rudradev ^^^: "Obviously pushes for US interest first, as with nuke and MMRCA deals, but I have good info from a State Dept source that he is more pro India than most others in the Washington establishment (may not be saying much but there it is)."

All true. Have chatted with him. He is as 'pro-India' as anyone is ever going to be. Reassuringly, the pro-India bias is through a pro-US prism which means it's likely to endure and not just for the sake of Indo-American contributions

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 13 May 2014 22:36

vera_k wrote:Further, visas are obsolete in the age of the hologram. Set up an Obama hologram in the PMO, and a Modi hologram in the WH, and the two can talk to their heart's content. Would cut quite a bit from the travel budget

I was about to say the same thing

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 13 May 2014 23:16

chaanakya wrote:Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar? America tayyar
Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN | May 13, 2014, 10.04 AM IST

Andersen also contested the view in some quarters that Modi's rise would mean greater saffronization of India with the RSS running amok. He cited the work of American political scientists Susan and Lloyd Rudolph who argued that any group that comes to power in a country as socially complex as India has to move toward the ideological center; if it does not, it will not come to power or stay in power. Modi, Andersen maintained, will be move interested in development than pushing the Hindutva agenda.

And for that they were rewarded with this years Padma Bhushan.

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... s-rudolph/

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 14 May 2014 01:08

Cleaning Up Coal in India
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Haiallah,Few Good white men of NYctimes Still Carrying The Burden

India’s Enforcement Directorate has filed charges of money laundering against a former minister of state for coal, Dasari Narayana Rao, and Naveen Jindal, a member of Parliament who also happens to be chairman of Jindal Steel and Power. This is the latest turn in a major corruption scandal in India, known as Coalgate, in which the coal ministry awarded a handful of companies lucrative mining rights on a noncompetitive basis. The charges are a hopeful sign that India is ready to clean up its coal industry. But much more needs to be done.Coal mining has long enjoyed sweetheart status in India, whatever the social and environmental costs. An 1894 land acquisition law that became an instrument of abuse, eventually fueling a Maoist insurgency, was finally replaced this year by a statute promising transparency and fair compensation.
Even so, activists are regularly harassed and even assassinated by thugs paid by powerful business interests to force people from their land. Ramesh Agrawal, who used India’s Right to Information Act to expose an illegal coal-mining venture by Jindal Steel and Power in Chhattisgarh, was shot and left for dead after he refused to back off. He accuses Mr. Jindal of ordering the attack. Mr. Agrawal was honored with a 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize for his fight for the communities threatened by the venture.Coal contributes 39 percent of the manmade carbon dioxide emissions that are altering the climate. India, with the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves, gets 59 percent of its electricity from coal, and, like China, is building coal-fired power plants at a rapid clip to meet rising demand. Some rare good news came recently from the United States Department of Energy’s National Carbon Capture Center, which said it would help an Indian start-up, Carbon Clean Solutions, test promising technologies to capture carbon emissions from power plants.India is nowhere near ready to wean itself from coal, which it must do to make a dent in global carbon emissions. But reining in the worst abuses in coal’s extraction and limiting the worst pollution from coal-burning plants are important first steps toward cleaning up a dirty business.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 14 May 2014 05:38

Tellis was by the way, one of the signees asking Indians not to vote for Modi in a recent farticle/press release by leftists in the US.

Brother, you ain't seen nearly enough leftist petitions. Ever seen the one signed by

Dr. Semili Terait, California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), Dr Weigh Poo, CIIS, Prof. I.M. Becile, Director of Mathematics and Subtraction, CIIS, Dr. Abdul Bin Kabul, Lecturer in IT, Lahore, Pakistan, Dr. Kanu Sanyal, Director of Integral and Disintegral Studies, Houristan University, Dr. Charu Majumdar, Director of Democracy, Freedom and Disintegration, Houristan University, Dr. Adolf A.H., Dr. Abdullah Goebbels...

u get the idea..

Banner Sign Above Ulan Bator Highway:

Do not judge a man (or boy or girl or something in between) by the appearance of a signature on a Petishun

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 14 May 2014 05:42

Would cut quite a bit from the travel budget

Have u considered the budget to create holograms of all the Secret Service ppl with dark glasses and Uzis, or the Air Force 1 B-777, the Spokesperson Houris to say: "Ladeeeees and Gentlemen, heeeeer's the Prejident of the Yooonited States!!" And ALLLL those black Chevy SUV gas-guzzlers with the blacked-out windows?

Not enough nuclear power plants in India to create the electric power for the lasers for the holograms.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 15 May 2014 02:48

India's Elections: What they mean for Corporate America
by Alyssa Ayres, finance.fortune.cnn.com
May 14th 2014
The election of Narendra Modi could set the stage for new talks over trade and investments between the U.S. and one of the world's biggest economies.

FORTUNE – As India's national election reaches the finish line, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, appears the front-runner. Should the BJP win, Modi, a once-highly polarizing figure, on whose watch Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 claimed about 1000 lives in the Western state of Gujarat, will almost certainly become prime minister of one of the world's biggest economies.

Modi's past presents challenges for the United States. Many worry that the denial of a visa to him in 2005 over questions about his responsibility for the riots will derail U.S.-India relations. Due to changed legal circumstances, the visa issue will likely recede (the U.S. denies entry to few, if any, heads of government). What's more, America's relationship overall with India has too many components, and there's too much in the future at stake for both countries to get locked up in the past.

Final results of India's elections are expected Friday. Modi's election could certainly mark a new chapter for India. From a U.S. perspective, concerns about the health of Indian secularism will not simply disappear, but they should not derail America's relationship with the country. If Modi keeps his word and focuses on the economy, and if Washington seizes the opportunity, the United States and India will find a way to continue partnering productively.

But to keep things on track with one of Washington's most important partners in Asia, the U.S. ought to focus on Modi's top campaign issue: trade and economics. After all, India is the world's largest democracy, and on track to become the third largest economy in the world by 2025, and a rising power.

This is not to suggest that Modi's past doesn't matter at all. It will undoubtedly discomfit some Americans, making it harder to herald shared values of democratic pluralism and diversity as the ideational core of the U.S.-India bond. Some have also speculated on the other side that Modi may resent the United States for the visa denial, leading to a chilling of bilateral ties. But this only strengthens the argument to place economics and business at the heart of U.S.-India relations.

On the narrow question of the visa, a recent Congressional Research Service study noted that a head of government would be eligible for a special diplomatic visa, a situation different from 2005. In addition, Modi's legal situation in India has changed. The slow wheels of the Indian judicial system have creaked forward over time, convicting many responsible for the 2002 violence, including a member of Modi's own cabinet. But a Supreme Court-commissioned special investigative team found insufficient evidence to bring charges against him, and late last year, a lower court upheld the investigation. As for whether he would resent the U.S., Modi himself has recently stated that a country's "relations are not determined…by what happened with an individual."

Beyond the visa issue, some Americans remain concerned about what a Modi government would mean for India's diverse, multireligious, pluralistic society. He has never formally apologized for the riots, and what also worries many is his longstanding ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organization. Anti-Muslim statements from some of his supporters—including a recent diatribe by a right-wing fringe leader on preventing Muslims from property ownership in Hindu areas—have been alarming. Thankfully, Modi has publicly disavowed such comments, but he will have to continue to keep this wing of his supporters in check.

At the same time, Modi presents a message of growth, governance and economic opportunity as his central appeal over his opponents. He has refocused the BJP party platform to make India "globally competitive," reclaim India's role as a global trading power and develop a "Brand India built on quality." The platform endorses foreign direct investment wherever needed, and emphasizes innovation and intellectual property rights. Pew Research found that he appeals to voters on economics and fighting corruption, besting Congress by a spread of nearly forty points. He will be accountable to Indian voters to deliver on this campaign promise.

That offers an opportunity for the U.S. to shore up a central part of the relationship that has frayed over the last two years. An Indian government more focused on trade and investment would provide a welcome opening, and U.S. corporations are eager to get back to business. Washington can respond with convening long-delayed trade meetings, and championing Indian interest in deeper economic partnership throughout Asia, including a path to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and inclusion in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.

Collaborating with India once again on trade and investment will help remove the rancor that has spread in recent months.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 15 May 2014 05:58

http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/14/for-i ... standards/
For-india-and-israel-higher-standards-are-double-standards/

Israel, of course, is not the only victim of double standards. I recently wrote about a misguided crusade by some in Congress against India: House Resolution 417, pushed by an odd coalition of left-wing Democrats and Christian conservatives, suggests, among other things, that India persecutes Christians. The truth is that few countries with a Christian minority are as hospitable to Christians as is India. The accommodation of diversity is inherent in India’s Hindu culture; for centuries, India has provided refuge to Christians and countless others fleeing persecution. If you want to find genuinely hateful oppression of Christians, you need look no further than some of India’s neighbors. Why, then, should India be singled out for criticism?A friend of mine asked that very question to an activist lobbying for House Resolution 417. The activist professed respect for India’s long tradition of religious tolerance, and insisted: “I just want to see India hold itself to the highest standard.” I’ve heard this type of logic before — in connection with Israel. Some of Israel’s critics use the Jewish people’s long history of suffering as an excuse to hold Israel to a higher standard. “Jews have endured persecution like no other people,” these critics argue. “They should know better than to persecute others.”
This type of condescending blather is nothing more than bigotry masquerading as flattery. “Higher standards” are used as an excuse to punish imperfect behavior — be it in India or Israel — while ignoring the truly despicable behavior next door. These “higher standards” are simply double standards.It is probably no coincidence that the same double standards are applied against Israel and India. Neither Judaism nor Hinduism seeks converts; Jews and Hindus thus tend to be surrounded, and outnumbered, by faiths that do. Israel is, of course, the only Jewish-majority state in the world, and India (along with much smaller Nepal) is one of only two Hindu-majority states. Jews see Israel as a necessary refuge for their people, just as Hindus see India as a necessary refuge for their people. And while Israel and India are both intent on retaining the character of their respective majority cultures, both are multicultural democracies that, unlike their neighbors, provide full rights to all.
The modern states of India and Israel entered the world community in a similar fashion. On their way out the door as colonial rulers of India, the British arranged for the partition of their former territory into two countries: India and Pakistan. (Pakistan included two noncontiguous parts, and the eastern part would later split off to become Bangladesh.) It was Muslims who pushed for the partition in the name of Muslim self-determination: They wanted a homeland in two parts of India where they constituted a majority.The creation of the Muslim homeland, however, essentially ended up driving over 7 million Hindus and Sikhs from their ancestral homelands, the cradle of their respective civilizations. The logic of partition was essentially as follows: In order to create a Muslim state alongside a multicultural Hindu-majority state, many people would move from one place to another. If your particular village or region was within the borders of the “other side,” you could still exercise your right of self-determination by moving “next door” to rejoin “your side.”Shortly after the partition of India, the United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine (which was then ruled by the British under a U.N. mandate) into a Jewish state and an Arab state. In 1948, Israel declared its independence and was promptly attacked by the armies of five Arab nations.