India-US Strategic News and Discussion

[sanjaykumar]

1971. Nixon/Kissinger did not abdicate their moral responsibilty. The escalation in Vietnam, the wholesale bombing of Cambodia protested by masses of Americans, to be followed by Chile and East Timor demonstrates that there was no morality for Nixon/Kissinger to abdicate.


Here is Doctor Henry Kissinger:

In less than a decade, an unprecedented movement has emerged to submit international politics to judicial procedures. It has spread with extraordinary speed and has not been subjected to systematic debate, partly because of the intimidating passion of its advocates. To be sure, human rights violations, war crimes, genocide, and torture have so disgraced the modern age and in such a variety of places that the effort to interpose legal norms to prevent or punish such outrages does credit to its advocates. The danger lies in pushing the effort to extremes that risk substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically, the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even witch-hunts.

The doctrine of universal jurisdiction asserts that some crimes are so heinous that their perpetrators should not escape justice by invoking doctrines of sovereign immunity or the sacrosanct nature of national frontiers. Two specific approaches to achieve this goal have emerged recently. The first seeks to apply the procedures of domestic criminal justice to violations of universal standards, some of which are embodied in United Nations conventions, by authorizing national prosecutors to bring offenders into their jurisdictions through extradition from third countries. The second approach is the International Criminal Court (ICC), the founding treaty for which was created by a conference in Rome in July 1998 and signed by 95 states, including most European countries. It has already been ratified by 30 nations and will go into effect when the total reaches 60. On December 31, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the ICC treaty with only hours to spare before the cutoff date. But he indicated that he would neither submit it for Senate approval nor recommend that his successor do so while the treaty remains in its present form.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/c ... 28174.html


But none of this is new.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commenta ... le4192522/


But out of the ethical corruption and venality comes along a certain Mr Blood. And America proves it is redeemable.

[Philip]

Pakistan was doomed from the start.It was a two-headed grotesque travesty of a state,where two ethnic groups in the main,Punjabi and Bengali jostled for power,with the Sindhis led by Bhutto waited like a jackal to feed on the scraps of the carcass,which he did,gorged himself silly and was in turn eaten up himself!

The US support for Pak no matter what Pak does is an understatement.This asinine and insidious policy that is detrimental to the entire sub-continent is the foundation for the amoral and immoral covert activities of the US in the region.The Paki ISI and CIA are joined at the hip,have been in bed with each other for so many decades,that even the current mistrust is merely a passing phase,as the US has agreed to hand over Afghanistan to Pak ,the devil take India.The neutering of India has been the avowed goal of the US ever since WW2 ended.To have the world's largest democracy "not under control",a loose cannon,is an unpardonable sin,as immediately after Independence,India under the leadership of Nehru ,was the leading light in the NAM community,providing an alternative to the power blocs of the Cold War.The US attitude was "if you're not with us ,you're against us".

Today,the seduction of India and roping it into the US's scheme of things has been the easiest task of all with a pliant and ever-ready willing puppet PM,has virtually turned us into an anti-China US proxy ,that is rapidly being drawn into a military bloc against China which includes Oz,Japan,SoKo and the ASEAN states worried at China's rapid and massive military expansion.City states like Singaproe can simply be flicked off the chessboard by the dragon's fingernail if it so desires.

However,despite India's genuflecting,obeisance and paying tribute to Uncle Sam-the huge defence deals pushed through with indecent haste,Uncle Sam's suspicions and manipulation of India remains a constant,hence the illegal cybercrime and intel operations of the NSA and CIA against the Indian establishment.This should be a wake-up call for the decision makers in Delhi,but with a US proxy and his shameless cronies determined to give the Uncle Sam full pickings at a garage sale of Indian interests,the battle to preserve India's sovereignty and independent foreign policy is going to be a hard fought battle.What has yet to be understood by the Delhiwallah establishment as they claw at each other in the Delhi Gym Club stakes,is that after the military intervention and "control" of troublesome Muslim states in the M-East,it will be the turn of the India,its Balkanisation, using Uncle Sam's favourite rent-boy Pak,so that the US can gain a mil. foothold on the lndian landmass,execute total control over the IOR and squat there forever.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/s ... un-mission

NSA spied on Indian embassy and UN mission, Edward Snowden files reveal

Documents released by US whistleblower show extent and aggression of datamining exercises targeting its diplomatic ally

A leaked document obtained by the Hindu suggests the NSA selected the office of India's mission at the UN in New York and the country's Washington embassy as 'location targets'. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters

The US National Security Agency may have accessed computers within the Indian embassy in Washington and mission at the United Nations in New York as part of a huge clandestine effort to mine electronic data held by its south Asian ally.

Documents released by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden also reveal the extent and aggressive nature of other NSA datamining exercises targeting India as recently as March of this year.

The latest revelations – published in the Hindu newspaper – came as Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, flew to Europe on his way to the US, where he will meet President Barack Obama.

The NSA operation targeting India used two datamining tools, Boundless Informant and Prism, a system allowing the agency easy access to the personal information of non-US nationals from the databases of some of the world's biggest tech companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

In June, the Guardian acquired and published top-secret documents about Boundless Informant describing how in March 2013 the NSA, alongside its effort to capture data within the US, also collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.

The largest amount of intelligence was gathered from Iran, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.

Though relations between India and the US were strained for many decades, they have improved considerably in recent years. President George Bush saw India as a potential counterweight to China and backed a controversial civil nuclear agreement with Delhi. Obama received a rapturous welcome when he visited in 2010, though concrete results of the warmer relationship have been less obvious.

According to one document obtained by the Hindu, the US agency used the Prism programme to gather information on India's domestic politics and the country's strategic and commercial interests, specifically categories designated as nuclear, space and politics.

A further NSA document obtained by the Hindu suggests the agency selected the office of India's mission at the UN in New York and the country's Washington embassy as "location targets" where records of Internet traffic, emails, telephone and office conversations – and even official documents stored digitally – could potentially be accessed after programs had been clandestinely inserted into computers.

In March 2013, the NSA collected 6.3bn pieces of information from internet networks in India and 6.2bn pieces of information from the country's telephone networks during the same period, the Hindu said.

After the Guardian reported in June that Pm program allowed the NSA "to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders", both US and Indian officials claimed no content was being taken from the country's networks and that the programs were intended to aid "counter-terrorism".

Syed Akbaruddin, an external affairs ministry spokesperson, said on Wednesday there was no further comment following the latest revelations.

Siddharth Varadajaran, editor of the Hindu, said the Indian government's "remarkably tepid and even apologetic response to the initial set of disclosures" made the story a "priority for Indians".

A home ministry official told the newspaper the government had been "rattled" to discover the extent of the the programme's interest in India. "It's not just violation of our sovereignty, it's a complete intrusion into our decision-making process," the official said.

Professor Gopalapuram Parthasarathy, a former senior diplomat, said no one should be surprised by the Hindu's story. "Everybody spies on everyone else. Some just have better gadgets. If we had their facilities, I'm sure we would do it too. The US-Indian relationship is good and stable and if they feel India merits so much attention then good for us," he told the Guardian.

Others have been less phlegmatic. Gurudas Dasgupta, a leader of the Indian Communist party, asked the government to raise the issue with Obama.

Anja Kovacs of the Delhi-based Internet Democracy Project said the articles showed that such datamining was not about any broader "struggle to protect society as a whole through something like fighting terrorism, but about control".

The Hindu argued that "the targeting of India's politics and space programme by the NSA busts the myth of close strategic partnership between India and US", pointing out that the other countries targeted in the same way as India "are generally seen as adversarial" by Washington.

[sanjaykumar]

It would be stupid of the US not to surveil India's strategic enterprises. To them China and Russia, definitely Pakistan and North Korea, Iran are known quantities. India is fundamentally an unknown-no trivial matter when India essentially has MIRVS/MARVS/intraatmospheric hypersonic delivery systems. Likely a full fledged fusion bomb inventory and further the ability to field over 2000 nukes if they so choose.

Comparatively, Pakistan or even China are straight forward.

Professor Gopalapuram Parthasarathy, a former senior diplomat, said no one should be surprised by the Hindu's story. "Everybody spies on everyone else. Some just have better gadgets. If we had their facilities, I'm sure we would do it too. The US-Indian relationship is good and stable and if they feel India merits so much attention then good for us," he told the Guardian.

[KrishnaK]

>>JEM, I think it's the wherewithal the US has had and continues to have w.r.t. other countries. The US seems to be able to trample over others privacy/security interests and still force them to engage with the US on account of other leverage.

KrishnaK, so what you are saying is that participants are upset with the fact that the US has accumulated the power to do these things you mention above... and so instead of (a) discussing what to do about it, or (b) learning to emulate and accumulate power in the same or similar way (because apparently it is a nice position to be in), participants are describing, and re-describing, this situation with a weird kind of impotent jealousy or anger? Surely, that cannot be the sum of it...?

JEM, boss you're an old old member of this forum. I'm sure you've read the various threads on this forum over the years and have some idea of it's contents: here's one post that's particularly revealing

NRao don't be naive, the sudden "closeness" of Americans is due to the fact that even after all the tech denial regimes they haven't been able to stop our growth both economically and technically which will continue more in the coming decade. Since they haven't been able to stop us so now they want to join us and hence all the sugar coated talk.

Given Indian's post-independence economic history, do explain how much of our growth or lack thereof is due to us and the US ? If we've been victorious in overcoming all schemes to keep us economically and technically impoverished, pray why didn't we do that from the 50s-90s. Instead of scheming and victory of the dharmics, how about it was the first darn time we chose to follow sane economic policies. The natural progression of which will result in us embracing the global economic order and growing to the point where others will well and truly start plotting against us. I'm saying this perfectly aware of the fact that the US or it's western allies are not doing us any particular favours. That said, we depend hugely on the global manufacturing/trading/financial regime which is pretty much underwritten by the US military budget and it's willingness to use it. How much of our discussion is about

(a) discussing what to do about it, or (b) learning to emulate and accumulate power in the same or similar way (because apparently it is a nice position to be in)

as compared to

• * phour fathers
  * sickular congi regime
  * the US only offers us technologies when we're about make the breakthrough ourselves (and I do understand the progress made by the DRDO on strategic weapons like ICBMS, nukes, nuke submarines which nobody will let us take a peek at)
  * psyops
  * strategic trends running across centuries, the underlying point of which is to keep India down and out (the following two examples from a single post)
  • * using Uncle Sam's favourite rent-boy Pak,so that the US can gain a mil. foothold on the lndian landmass,execute total control over the IOR and squat there forever.
    * The neutering of India has been the avowed goal of the US ever since WW2 ended.

All of the whines, rants and plots seem to be about one thing only - the US won't do what we'd have it do. Seems awfully like the behaviour of our brothers across the border to me. Revelations that they actually have us over the barrel (including the rest of the world ) over IT infrastructure have only gotten the blood pressure a few notches higher.

[harbans]

US Court issues summons against MMS!

[Virupaksha]

US Court issues summons against MMS!

Those b*stards!!

[Philip]

All timed to embarrass the PM and along with the ongoing Paki terror attacks in J&K ,to put pressure upon him to bend to US diktat,so that the Pax Americana can be established on the Indian subcontinent....all in favour of the US and Pak,detrimental to Indian interests.

Past time for Indians to also go to the courts to bring war criminal O'Bomber AKA O'Bugger,for his war crimes around the world and for bugging Indian diplomatic missions in the US.

[sanjaykumar]

I understand some Hindus in Panjab are moving the courts similarly for what they see as crimes against humanity commited by the jatedhars of Sikhi in the 1980s. It is all tamasha.

[harbans]

Before 65 MPs wrote to US to keep Modi out of US, now we need 65 MP's to write to US to keep SG and MMS in!

[rajanb]

All timed to embarrass the PM and along with the ongoing Paki terror attacks in J&K ,to put pressure upon him to bend to US diktat,so that the Pax Americana can be established on the Indian subcontinent....all in favour of the US and Pak,detrimental to Indian interests.

Past time for Indians to also go to the courts to bring war criminal O'Bomber AKA O'Bugger,for his war crimes around the world and for bugging Indian diplomatic missions in the US.

Yes Philip.

It is time India took its position in the comity of nations. Our population is big enough to warrant a stronger voice. Be it an MMS or a NaMo, we need to assume a leadership role in these troubled times to lobby and vote for equality in application of laws for all concerned. It is time that we leveraged whatever we have, be it in areas of opening markets or massive defence spends. And once in a way, slapped Pakistan, to remind them of consequences worse than '71 and the Chinese of worse than they would get compared to '62.

IG went to the extent of belittling Nixon's and Kissinger's collective manhoods.

We seem to be satisfied in having a foreign minister who reads the right speeches and no more. Which the previous one could not.

[TSJones]

US Court issues summons against MMS!

Somebody paid a $350 filing fee for absolutely no standing at all. There is no legal perfection for this. It looks like a grand stand play to me. Absolutely empty.

[Sagar G]

SG,

A few items of interest, briefly:

* I am tiring of these discussions
* Because I am interested in what happens ("dot") and never in why or how they happen
* Again, I sit and connect those "dots" to "predict" what direction a relationship could go
* And, all I have said is that the Indo-US relationship will grow closer - I have never said why
* I have ALSO stated that the very same relationship will grow further apart too (which you seem to have totally missed)
* And, I do not recall ever stating that either is good or bad

Point 4 and 5 are in contradiction which makes it even more difficult to understand what you actually want to say. They sound to me like malsi logic. Malsi is pissfull onlee and means piss, malsi also allows unabashed killing of non malsi people for glory and spread of malsi'ans but malsi is pissful onlee.

I do read what happened, but never register why or how it happened. Waste of my time.

Actually you should "waste your time" knowing why or how something happened. It's good to know the background.

* I do not care about joining hands
* "experience" has multiple levels. All I am saying is that there are 1/2 levels at which these two nations have excellent synergies
* I expect a few things to happen. IF they do (they may not), then it will be rather dramatic in nature, and
* IMHO, there are too many parties on both sides, so I feel it will happen
* Tech (Javelin NG/EMALS/etc) will be a very small part

Let us see.

Yup let us see onlee, I agree on that.

[Sagar G]

Given Indian's post-independence economic history, do explain how much of our growth or lack thereof is due to us and the US ? If we've been victorious in overcoming all schemes to keep us economically and technically impoverished, pray why didn't we do that from the 50s-90s. Instead of scheming and victory of the dharmics, how about it was the first darn time we chose to follow sane economic policies. The natural progression of which will result in us embracing the global economic order and growing to the point where others will well and truly start plotting against us. I'm saying this perfectly aware of the fact that the US or it's western allies are not doing us any particular favours. That said, we depend hugely on the global manufacturing/trading/financial regime which is pretty much underwritten by the US military budget and it's willingness to use it.

This "lecture" from "I know it all" types is a very good example that why people must first focus on following the discussion, staying on topic and not taking reply out of context. Lets take a proper look at the "teachings" which this "holier than thou" soul bestows on us poor and dumb SDRE souls,

If we've been victorious in overcoming all schemes to keep us economically and technically impoverished, pray why didn't we do that from the 50s-90s. Instead of scheming and victory of the dharmics, how about it was the first darn time we chose to follow sane economic policies.

How merciful of this "holier than thou" soul to tell us that we followed "sane economic policies" after running our economy to the ground. Had this "holier than thou" soul not told us none of us dirty poor SDRE would have come to know about it. Take a bow you brown b@st@rds and thank this "holier than thou" soul for showing us the truth.

The natural progression of which will result in us embracing the global economic order and growing to the point where others will well and truly start plotting against us. I'm saying this perfectly aware of the fact that the US or it's western allies are not doing us any particular favours.

His holiness has also become self aware through immense tapasya that "western counties are not doing us any particular favour". None of you poor dumbass SDRE's knew about it no !!!!!

You know what to do now take a bow again........

That said, we depend hugely on the global manufacturing/trading/financial regime which is pretty much underwritten by the US military budget and it's willingness to use it.

The ultimate truth be told here each and every one of you is ultimately working for US military onlee, that's right his holiness has given his verdict from his vast knowledge gained through immense tapasya done for decades.

You know what to do......

P.S. - "The path to self awareness comes from self flogging and doing an == with our western neighbour" - by Holier Than Thou.

[NRao]

SG,

We are on two different pages (which is why it is tiring) (your post is an example of it, relative to what I want to say, yours is tangential, does nto pertain to what I have to say), so let it slide. It is OK. Thx.

[Sagar G]

Exactly Nrao saar we are on different pages w.r.t. joo ess.

[pankajs]

India needs US on its side: Manmohan Singh

Describing US as an "important strategic partner", Singh said during Obama's regime, "We have taken several steps to widen and deepen this partnership in diverse ways." During this visit the two sides will review the progress that has been made and also what further can be done to give "added meaning and content to this partnership," he told reporters soon after his arrival at the Andrews Air Force Base where he was received by acting deputy chief of protocol Rosemarie Pauli.

Singh and Obama are expected to discuss a wide range of issues with focus on defence, economic and regional issues.

"The US is one of India's most important trading partners. It is also an important provider of investment and technology support for India's development and we need the United States on our side as we give a new added thrust to our development programmes."

[ramana]

But does US think it needs India on its side? Feeling has to be mutual no?

So far what we see is public demands that India should do more for some illusory US gains wrt TSP.

[JE Menon]

KrishnaK - your last paragraph is hard to argue with, not that I want to. But you've hit the nail on the head I think.

[SaiK]

US Court issues summons against MMS!

The US courts has brains up their @$$e$. Don't they know, his mam needs to tell him and not the courts?

[Philip]

How a drug sent US troops berserk,still being used by Brits!

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/e ... 42496.html

Exclusive: The Lariam scandal - MoD ‘ignored decades of warnings about dangers of suicide drug’

Drug that most GPs are reluctant to prescribe for their patients and that is banned by US military is putting thousands of British soldiers’ lives at risk

Thousands of British soldiers are being put at increased risk of psychosis and suicide because the Ministry of Defence refuses to stop using a controversial anti-malarial drug that has just been banned by the US military, The Independent can reveal.

Mefloquine – better known as Lariam – has long been the subject of warnings over its effects on mental health and is now only used by a minority of people travelling abroad.

Amid mounting concerns about the dangers of the drug – which has been linked with a string of suicides and murders – the US military acted this month to ban its use among special forces. The decision came after it was linked to the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier.

Yet British soldiers are still being given Lariam – a drug described as a modern-day “Agent Orange” by doctors because of its toxicity.

Speaking to The Independent, a former senior medical officer accused the MoD of ignoring repeated warnings over the dangers of the drug. Lt-Col Ashley Croft, who served for more than 25 years in the Royal Army Medical Corps and is an expert on malaria, said: “For the past 12 years I was saying this is potentially a dangerous drug – most people can take it without problems but a few people will experience difficulties and of those a small number will become psychotic and because there are other alternatives that are safer and just as effective we should move to them but my words fell on deaf ears.”

Lt Col Ashcroft, who retired in April, accused the MoD of being in “denial mode”. He added: “The problem is that it can make people have psychotic thoughts and therefore act in an irrational manner and potentially a manner that is dangerous to themselves or their colleagues, or civilians.”

Doxycycline and malarone are safer drugs which are as effective in preventing malaria, according to the retired officer. “Really the only people that get it [Lariam] now are the poor old soldiers and they have no choice.”

Mefloquine is typically given to soldiers serving in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Latin America and South-east Asia. Lt Col Croft estimates around 2,500 soldiers a year are given the drug.

Lariam was developed by the US Army in the 1970s, and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1989. It became a popular drug for preventing and treating malaria, but recent years have seen it become superceded by newer antimalarial drugs, such as malarone.

While most NHS doctors now recommend that civilians travelling overseas take alternatives to Lariam with fewer side-effects, British service personnel are given little choice about whether to take the drug.

This is despite the US military banning Lariam on safety grounds. An order issued earlier this month by the US Special Forces Command states: “medical personnel will immediately cease the prescribing and use of mefloquine for malaria prophylaxis”. It adds: “Hallucinations and psychotic behaviour can occur and continue for months or years after mefloquine use; cases of suicidal ideation and suicide have been reported.”

The decision comes after an order in July from the FDA to force manufacturers to give the drug a “black box” label, its strongest warning. The FDA warned that some neurological and psychiatric side effects can last for months or years after people stop taking the drug.

Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the US soldier who killed 16 Afghan civilians in March 2012, had taken Lariam while serving in Iraq.

Dr Remington Nevin, a former US army doctor and expert on the psychiatric effects of Lariam, who is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said: “As a result of its toxic effects, the drug is quickly becoming the “Agent Orange” of this generation, linked to a growing list of lasting neurological and psychiatric problems including suicide.” In addition to the mental health risks, physical side effects range from internal bleeding to liver and lung damage.

But there are no signs of the British Army stopping its use of Lariam. An MoD spokesperson said: “All our medical advice is based on the current guidelines set out by Public Health England. Based on its expert advice, the MoD continues to prescribe mefloquine as part of the range of malaria prevention treatments recommended. It is just one of the prevention treatments available and is only prescribed under certain circumstances to ensure the treatment provided is the most effective.”

While ordinary soldiers are routinely given the drug, the MoD ordered that it should not be given to air crew or divers, given the particular risks of such posts. In its latest guidance for commanders, dated 2013, it cites “significant risk of side effects, which could degrade concentration and co-ordination”, and that any such specialist personnel who take it will be unfit for duty for three months.

A spokesman for the Public Health England Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention (ACMP), said: “Mefloquine is an extremely effective antimalarial and we are not aware of any new data that alter our view of the safety of mefloquine.” He added: “Whenever new evidence about antimalarials appears the ACMP considers this as part of its continuous process of developing advice.”

Lt Col Croft condemned the ACMP for “promoting this drug as ‘safe’” and added: “They shelter behind collegiality, and won’t budge from this position since it would imply that their earlier judgement on mefloquine was wrong, and if they were to now change their advice then they as individuals could potentially be cited, in personal injury actions brought by mefloquine-damaged travellers.”

And Dr Nevin commented: “Public Health England has a responsibility to protect the travelling public from the threat posed by dangerous medicines, and should carefully reconsider its recommendations in light of mefloquine’s neurotoxicity and its association with risk of permanent neurological injury and death.”

He added: “Mefloquine toxicity is also a potentially life-threatening condition that is fully preventable by use of safer daily antimalarials.”

Roche, the company that makes Lariam, warned of the risk of suicide more than a decade ago. And this July, in a letter to doctors in Ireland, Dr Maria Luz Amador, the company’s medical director, warned that the drug “may induce potentially serious neuropsychiatric disorders” and that “hallucinations, psychosis, suicide, suicidal thoughts and self-endangering behaviour have been reported.”

A statement from Roche said: “All medicines have side effects and we are sorry to hear about those that experience adverse reactions to our medicines.” It continued, the benefits “outweigh the potential risk of the treatment and Roche maintains the position that there is no causal relationship between suicidal tendency, suicide or self-harm and Lariam.”

But it cautioned: “Lariam should not be prescribed for prophylaxis in persons with active depression or with a history of major psychiatric disorders or convulsions.”

Doctors “tend to steer clear of it,” said Dr Claire Gerarda, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners. “I wouldn’t encourage it, because I think it’s got nasty side effects. I can’t remember the last time I prescribed Lariam.”

Lariam: The suicides, murders and incidents of self-harm

The controversial anti-malarial drug Lariam has been linked to a series of military suicides, murders and incidents of self-harm during the past 20 years.

* Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the US soldier who killed 16 Afghan civilians in 2012, had taken Lariam while serving in Iraq. Although he is not mentioned by name, an “adverse event” report was made to Roche, manufacturers of the drug, on 29th March 2012 from a pharmacist regarding an unnamed Army soldier. “The patient who was a soldier in the US Army developed homicidal behavior and led to Homicide killing 17 Afghanis,” it said. The report, which was passed on to the US Food and Drug Administration, claimed the drug had been given “in direct contradiction to US military rules that Mefloquine should not be given to soldiers who had suffered TBI (Traumatic brain injury) due to its propensity to cross blood brain barriers inciting psychotic, homicidal or suicidal behaviour.”

Staff Sergeant Robert Bales Staff Sergeant Robert Bales

* Canadian peacekeepers beat, tortured and shot two local teenagers in Somalia in 1993. Major Barry Armstrong, the military commander of the Somalia surgical unit, in a report dated October that year, stated: “I believe there may be an additional, simple explanation for our difficulties in Somalia: Canadian and American troops may have been impaired by the use of mefloquine.”

* In 2000, Lance Corporal Kristian Shelmerdine, the Parachute Regiment, shot himself in the arm while serving in Sierra Leone. He blamed the accident on the drug, claiming to have had bad dreams and woken up to find himself shot, but was found guilty of ‘negligent discharge’. Two years later, four US soldiers based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (three of whom had recently returned from Afghanistan, where troops were prescribed Lariam) killed their wives. Two of the soldiers killed themselves.

* In 2004, a US Army reservist shot himself in Iraq – just weeks before he was due to return home. In a US army report which subsequently emerged, an army psychiatrist stated: “if toxicology reveals the presence of mefloquine, SPC Torres’ case should be viewed in light of other suicides suspected to be associated with the drug.”

Jonathan Owen

Before 65 MPs wrote to US to keep MMS out of US, now we need 65 MP's to write to US to keep SG and MMS in!

[NRao]

Sept 23, 2013 :: AWST :: Mr. Singh Comes To Washington: India, China & The Pacific

When Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh meets with President Obama at the White House this Friday, the rise of China may not be on the official agenda, but it will be on everybody’s mind – and Beijing will be watching warily.

Friday’s meeting will be just the latest in a series of summits that began with George W. Bush – whose first term, not coincidentally, started with a pre-9/11 crisis over China’s downing of a US Navy spy plane off Hainan. Relations have kept getting closer ever since the Bush administration elevated India to the ranks of our most important allies. India has been the world’s biggest arms importer for the last four years in a row, and the value of its purchases from the US has soared since their nadir of zero in 2004-2005, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.



India’s navy is buying Boeing’s P-8 patrol plane, while their air force flies Boeing C-17 and Lockheed C-130 cargo aircraft (although it passed on F-16 and F-18 fighters in favor of France’s Rafale, with the Russian Sukhoi Su-30 reportedly the backup option if the Rafale deal falls through). The two countries’ militaries regularly exercise with one another, especially at sea. There is even talk of regular “rotations” of US Air Force units through the Indian airbase at Trivandrum, similar to the US Marine Corps’ long-term but not permanent presence in Darwin, Australia, which already gives Beijing the heebie-jeebies.

The growing closeness of Washington and New Delhi is bad news for Beijing, whose leaders fear “encirclement” by hostile powers. Ironically, that fear may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy because of China’s own increasing aggressiveness towards its neighbors, from Japan to the Philippines to India itself.

Just this April, Chinese soldiers crossed into Indian-claimed territory in the Himalayas and camped out in Indian-claimed territory for three weeks. The move so thoroughly provoked Indian nationalists ahead of a visit by China’s new premier that some observers speculated PLA commanders were acting without Beijing’s approval, perhaps in a deliberate attempt to scuttle any Sino-Indian détente. On the Indian side, just eight days ago, India staged a new test of its first ballistic missile with enough range to drop a nuclear warhead on Beijing, the Agni V, a weapon some Indian hawks have dubbed “the China-killer.”

Meanwhile, US-India relations grow warmer. Obama and Singh themselves have met three times already: in Washington in 2009, in New Delhi in 2010, and in Bali in 2011. Just this July, Vice-President Joe Biden and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno both visited India. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was there last week. He not only touted US arms sales but also proposed that the US and India co-develop the next-generation of the Javelin anti-tank missile, built by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. He even advertised new “priority funding” incentives to encourage US and Indian researchers to collaborate: “That’s something we’ve only ever done before with the United Kingdom and Australia,” Carter told reporters in New Delhi just five days ago.

But Carter’s visit also highlighted the limits of the US-India defense relationship. The proposal to jointly develop the new Javelin, for example, follows on earlier US offers to build production sites in India for the existing Javelin, the MH-60 helicopter, a naval gun, and a minelaying system. New Delhi is still thinking about it. Tellingly, the two countries can’t even agree on what the “T” stands for in a partnership called “DTI”: Washington says “Defense Trade Initiative,” to emphasize the US selling arms to India, while New Delhi calls it the “Defense Technology Initiative,” to emphasize the US transferring new technology to India. Meanwhile, US and Indian diplomats are rushing to finalize a civilian nuclear power deal — signed with great fanfare five years ago but never implemented — in time for Singh’s visit on Friday.

As much as hawks in both the US and India would like their countries to jointly contain China, there are reasons India will be cautious. The issue is not so much on the US side, despite the Pentagon’s repeated protests that, as Carter said in New Delhi last week, “the rebalance is not aimed at China.” In fact, under Carter’s leadership, the Pentagon has overridden the State Department’s reluctance to sell advanced weaponry to India, just as Bush overturned the sanctions put in place to punish India for its 1998 nuclear tests. But on the Indian side there are still deep-rooted obstacles: a six-decade commitment to “non-alignment,” an arsenal largely built with Russian weapons (“We don’t have the history that Russia does here,” Carter acknowledged), and sheer institutional inertia have slowed New Delhi’s response to US offerings. Indeed, arms sales to India can take decades to finalize, when the seller is lucky.)

The Elephant Dance: Engaging India Without Unnerving China

It makes no strategic sense to discuss one of Asia’s rapidly growing giants without considering the other. When US strategists talk about the rise of China in the West Pacific, India is the elephant in the room next door. Conversely, when America courts the world’s largest democracy, you can bet it’s seen with some suspicion by the authoritarian superpower across the Himalayas. Any engagement with one will create a reaction in the other – and as with any maneuver involving elephants, a great deal of delicacy is required.

So how can the US cultivate India without alarming China? “I don’t think that’s possible,” said Carl Baker, director of programs for the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “There’s always been sort of a strategic tension between the two,” he said. Points of friction: the two nation’s nuclear arsenals; China’s support of Pakistan; India’s support for Tibet’s exiled Dalai Lama; the disputed Himalayan border over which the two countries fought a brief war in 1962; and, increasingly, overlapping maritime ambitions in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific.

So Beijing is naturally leery of US-Indian cooperation, especially the increase in recent years in arms sales, joint exercises, and high-level military meetings. US officials, of course, make haste to dispute that.

“Our [goal] is not to go contain China,” insisted Gen. Odierno, speaking at CSIS on his return from a visit to India in July. (It was his first as America’s top Army officer but the second in his career). “Containment is having large land forces stationed forward,” Odierno said, which America does not intend and India would not permit. But US forces regularly visit India and the India Ocean for joint exercises and may start regular deployments to the airbase at Trivandrum. So the general’s definition of “containment” conveniently ignores much of what the Chinese, like the Soviets before them, might consider “encirclement.”

“This policy is not excluding China,” Odierno insisted. “It’s to work with China [to] ensure that we don’t get into conflict, we don’t build animosities between all the major power in the Asia-Pacific.”

Just as the Chinese have their anxieties about the US and India, however, the Indians have deep doubts about the Chinese that no amount of American diplo-speak can smooth over. Those doubts date back to a border war the two countries fought in the Himalayas 51 years ago, a humiliation for India that the Chinese barely remember but which Indian patriots cannot forget.

“When I was in India last year [to meet] high-level [defense] officials,” recalled Pentagon strategist and Georgetown University professor Oriana Mastro, “we spent the whole time speaking about the 1962 war.” (Mastro recounted this story at a Carnegie Endowment panel in June on “India’s naval rise”). The next week, she travelled to China and couldn’t find a single text on the border war in “the biggest bookstore in Beijing,” she said. When she asked the staff to help her, she got this incredulous response: “We fought a war with India in 1962?”

Yet for Indian policymakers and elites, that half-century-old trauma has shaped their view of China ever since.



India vs. China, By Land Or By Sea?

It is essential to realize just how different the world looks from New Delhi. From the US perspective looking across the vast Pacific, for example, a hypothetical hostile China is primarily a naval problem: The Pentagon concept that de facto focuses on conflict with China is even called “Air-Sea Battle.” From an Indian perspective looking across the Himalayas, however, Chinese hostility is hardly hypothetical, and it’s an entirely terrestrial border dispute – assuming that neither side starts flinging nukes.

While Pakistan has always been India’s primary threat, China steamrollered India in 1962 and the Himalayan boundary remains disputed to this day, with regular Chinese incursions. Just this April, People’s Liberation Army troops marched 12 miles into Indian-claimed territory and set up camp there for three weeks, watched warily by Indian soldiers.

“As it is in many of the Asia-Pacific countries, the army is the dominant service” in India, Gen. Odierno noted pointedly. “It is by far the largest service, it is by far the most influential.”

In contrast to how US defense spending is divided into roughly equal shares for each military department (Army, Air Force, and Navy/Marines), the Indian Army historically consumes more than half of India’s defense spending. In the proposed 2013-2014 budget, the Army share shrank slightly, but it still gets 49 percent. The Air Force is a distant second at 28 percent, despite years of steady growth, and the Indian Navy actually shrinks to under 18 percent. (The remaining 5 percent goes to defense-wide activities, primarily research and development).

“The Chinese-Indian confrontations are all on land,” said Norman Polmar, a leading naval historian and analyst. “There’s no naval confrontation between the two because there’s no naval intersection between the two.”

That could change, however, as both Beijing and New Delhi increase their naval capabilities and ambitions. “The land border [is] a source of irritation, but I don’t think that’s what drives the real competition, ” said CSIS’s Baker, disagreeing with Polmar. “I think the competition ultimately is maritime.”

In the oil-rich and much-contested South China Sea, for example, an Indian company is backing Vietnamese exploration of areas claimed by China. Last year India’s top admiral, D.K. Joshi, went so far as to say his fleet stood “prepared” to defend India’s energy interests there. It was a dubious claim in terms of the Indian military’s actual ability to intervene – Baker dismisses it as “bluster” – but it still that provoked a harsh Chinese response.

For China’s part, the People’s Republic depends on the uninterrupted flow of Middle Eastern oil eastwards across the Indian Ocean and through the Strait of Malacca. (So do US allies like Japan and South Korea). Growing Chinese investments in ports around the region – in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar (Burma) – have spurred Indian anxieties about being encircled by a Chinese “string of pearls.”

“Indeed,” scholar Iskander Rehman wrote wrily in 2012, “a first-time traveler to India could be forgiven for believing that India is on the verge of being subjected to a sudden wave of Chinese amphibious landings.” Now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Rehman is deeply skeptical about potential Sino-Indian naval conflict. He emphasizes that India’s chief maritime problem remains Pakistan, from whose shores sailed the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack.

That said, the Indian Navy has never been a mere coastal defense force and lately “has been pursuing an ambitious and impressive modernization program,” Rehman told me. The goal: “a 160 ship fleet, with 300 aircraft, structured around three carrier groups, by 2022.” (By comparison, the US Navy has ten carriers – a historic low – and over 3,700 aircraft).

India’s ambitions, however, often exceed its grasp. Currently, India has a single geriatric carrier, an ex-Royal Navy ship first laid down in World War II. But it has bought the unfinished Soviet carrier Gorshkov (a smaller cousin to China’s carrier, the ex-Soviet Varyag, which has not yet entered service). The refurbished carrier should – after much delay – enter Indian service as the Vikramaditya this year, equipped with Russian-built MiG-29K fighters that far outclass India’s current Harrier jumpjets. Two Indian-designed carriers are also in the works, but they are even more delayed, and Rehman predicts the first won’t enter service “until 2018 at the earliest.”

India also has two nuclear-powered submarines – one Russian import and one built domestically – and a dozen conventionally powered ones, with ambitious plans for a fleet of five ballistic-missile subs as a nuclear deterrent. It is also building a variety of corvettes, frigates, and destroyers. But in case after case, Rehman said, “these programs have been plagued by inefficiency, delays and severe cost overruns.”



Current Limitations, Long-Term Potential

Why does India’s domestic defense industry so consistently underperform? “India missed the industrial revolution,” sighed Vice-Admiral Venkat “Barry” Bharathan, a retired Indian Navy officer with 40 years’ service. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, he argued, the British deliberately kept their subcontinental colony from becoming an industrial competitor. After independence in 1947, India’s own policy of “non-alignment” and its poor relations with the US isolated it from many technological developments in the West, especially military ones.

So India depended first on weapons inherited from the British and then on ones imported from the Soviets, solving its immediate operational needs at the price of stunting its home-grown defense industry. Since the Soviet collapse, India has upped its imports of US and other Western equipment but continues to work with Russia, from which it has bought Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighter-bombers and leased an Akula-class nuclear submarine. As a result of this complicated history, Bharathan said, the Indian military has become a unique and somewhat awkward hybrid: “a British clone using Russian equipment with Western doctrine and an Indian mindset.”

To bridge the gap between its government’s growing ambitions and its domestic armsmakers’ limitations, India has been one of the world’s top arms importers for over a decade. From 2001 to 2012, according to SIPRI, India has been the world’s No. 1 arms importer six years out of 12 – including every year since 2009 – and No. 2 four times. Only China matches that record: In fact, it matches it exactly, with six years at No. 1 and four at No. 2. But India’s arms imports have soared in recent years to roughly triple China’s annual figure.

Nevertheless, China’s total defense spending is three and a half times India’s, thanks to a rapidly growing economy and a significant domestic arms industry. (Both countries’ spending remains a fraction of the United States’).





Both countries have cutting-edge Russian weapons like the Sukhoi SU-30 – Russia sells the SU-30MKK variant to China and the SU-30MKI to India – but China just has more planes, more ships, more tanks, more troops, and more military-age manpower available than India does.

That is, it does for now. The legacy of Mao’s “one child policy” to limit Chinese birthrates has resulted in an aging population that is growing at half the rate of India’s. In fact, China’s population is expected to start shrinking circa 2025, just around the time that India’s population overtakes it, according to one RAND study. Still more significant is that China’s working age population already peaked in 2010, says RAND, while India’s workforce is expected to keep growing until 2030. And India’s economy is already growing almost as fast as China’s.

So while India is hardly an equal counterweight to China today, in twenty years India will have more people and quite possibly more wealth available for its armed forces. For all the short-term frustrations, Washington’s bet on the world’s biggest democracy makes a lot of long-term sense.

[RamaY]

^ very interesting data.

China is keeping the Military budget as a %of GDP constant and focussing on economy building.

India on the other hand did nothing and is walking nowhere.

[harbans]

“When I was in India last year [to meet] high-level [defense] officials,” recalled Pentagon strategist and Georgetown University professor Oriana Mastro, “we spent the whole time speaking about the 1962 war.” (Mastro recounted this story at a Carnegie Endowment panel in June on “India’s naval rise”). The next week, she travelled to China and couldn’t find a single text on the border war in “the biggest bookstore in Beijing,” she said. When she asked the staff to help her, she got this incredulous response: “We fought a war with India in 1962?”

Why should this be a surprise? I have been to china so many times, and so many people have asked me about Tibet. What happens 3000 miles from the Han Mainland is hardly a concern to the normal Chinese. 95% of China is on the East Coast, South China Sea. Tibet is a massive 2 million plus sq km territory with a population of just around 6 million. SO if China ordered border incursions or Mao..the ordinary Chinese would have no clue. Yet the Indian so connected through centuries and culture to Tibet and the adjacent areas right next door would have a tremendous impact. That is why the urgency of removing a neighbour of ours China. Yet cliches rule our thinking circuits..like "Neighbors can't be changed' ..we have to talk. And the person who exeplifies all this "talking" is the mummy personified MMS!!

[svinayak]

“When I was in India last year [to meet] high-level [defense] officials,” recalled Pentagon strategist and Georgetown University professor Oriana Mastro, “we spent the whole time speaking about the 1962 war.” (Mastro recounted this story at a Carnegie Endowment panel in June on “India’s naval rise”). The next week, she travelled to China and couldn’t find a single text on the border war in “the biggest bookstore in Beijing,” she said. When she asked the staff to help her, she got this incredulous response: “We fought a war with India in 1962?”

Why should this be a surprise? I have been to china so many times, and so many people have asked me about Tibet. What happens 3000 miles from the Han Mainland is hardly a concern to the normal Chinese. 95% of China is on the East Coast, South China Sea. Tibet is a massive 2 million plus sq km territory with a population of just around 6 million. SO if China ordered border incursions or Mao..the ordinary Chinese would have no clue. Yet the Indian so connected through centuries and culture to Tibet and the adjacent areas right next door would have a tremendous impact. That is why the urgency of removing a neighbour of ours China. Yet cliches rule our thinking circuits..like "Neighbors can't be changed' ..we have to talk. And the person who exeplifies all this "talking" is the mummy personified MMS!!

Even Chinese people dont know what is Tibet.

How would the Chinese people know about 1962!

[SaiK]

^ very interesting data.

China is keeping the Military budget as a %of GDP constant and focussing on economy building.

India on the other hand did nothing and is walking nowhere.

could not read you saar.. pl to explain. however, i could see the variance being smaller when compared to India and especially USA.

[Vayutuvan]

... over IT infrastructure have only gotten the blood pressure a few notches higher.

KrishnaK ji, that IT you refer to - is it Information Technology or International Terror (through the large BENISed IT superpower)?

[prahaar]

With RG over-ruling the UPA2 ordinance, does the current PM have any credibility left to negotiate ANYTHING on behalf of GOI? Signing accord does not mean a thing if the person cannot deliver it.

The reason for posting this comment here is in relation to MMS-Obama meeting/talks about various nuclear/arms deals which are on agenda. Never thought I would have to say this about India, but it does not make sense to have any deals with the PM if UPA-Chair does not approve of it.

[Rudradev]

By the way, for those who were wondering, the GOTUS has reinstated the hyphen -- officially and publicly.

On GOTUS mouthpiece NPR this morning (paraphrasing): "President Obama will be hosting the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, at the White House. They will talk about economic cooperation as well as India's role in the security environment of South Asia. This will not be the first time President Obama has hosted Singh, who was the guest of honor at the President's first White House state dinner in 2009. Next month, President Obama will also be hosting the new Prime Minister of India's neighbour, and sometimes rival, Pakistan. "

From about 2003-4 until this year, the above news item would have gone through without any mention of Pakistan-- let alone describing it as a "rival" to India. Also, it would have probably referred to a "developing strategic partnership" rather than making it sound (more truthfully) as if Manmohan will be reporting to Obama on how he plans to serve US security interests in the subcontinent. Now, at least, we know where things stand.

[Rudradev]

A refreshingly frank interview on India-US relations with US academician and strategic thinker Yossef Bodansky:

http://www.asianage.com/ideas/india-mus ... -power-803

...


Q: Does Washington accept Islamabad’s view that New Delhi is using Afghanistan to de-stabilise Pakistan?

A: Yes. Obama’s Washington is even more hostile to New Delhi than Islamabad. Today, India is using Afghanistan to get at Pakistan. But that is not strategy; it is just another pissing match. It is irrelevant in global terms. From the US point of view, India’s insistence in being in Afghanistan interferes with its aims to hand over Afghanistan to Pakistan and China.

Q: But why would the United States want to do this?

A: Why not? If we make a deal with Pakistan, the Taliban will not shoot at our troops and we can leave peacefully. India, on the other hand, does not play a role as a global power so why should we take it seriously.

Q: A number of US commentators in recent times have suggested that Pakistan’s obsession with Afghanistan can be resolved if the Kashmir issue is sorted out once and for all with India. Do you believe that a Kashmir “solution” will end Pakistan’s preoccupation with Afghanistan?

A: Obama’s Washington wants Kashmir resolved in Pakistan’s favour —Afghanistan or no Afghanistan.
India is so passive that the United States feels it can pressure India to make concessions in Kashmir so that the US can get a better deal with Pakistan. Kashmir should not be on the menu but it is. Large swathes of Siberian territory owned by Russia are claimed by China but the United States never dares to tell Russia to cede any territory to China so that the US gets a better economic deal with China. But the state department does think that India can be pressured to compromise on Kashmir and thereby secure a better deal for Washington with the Pakistanis. Such a thing would be inconceivable if India was a world power.

When Pakistani terrorists attacked the India parliament, the United States told India that it dare not attack Pakistan. India has brought this upon itself by being passive. It is fighting for crumbs in Afghanistan.

Q: Why has the US been reluctant to accept a greater Indian role in Afghanistan?

A: We want China (that can help with Iran) and its proxy Pakistan.

Q: Is the view that Washington is prepared to cut a deal with Pakistan and the Quetta Shura at any cost credible?

A: Yes.

Q: Despite being aware that Pakistan has directly or indirectly aided the insurgency in Afghanistan, Washington seems to be going out of its way to cede control of south and eastern Afghanistan to Pakistan. What precisely is the strategic thinking behind these moves? And do you believe that such a move will stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan?

A: This is what Pakistan wants and this is what will make China happy.

Q: Do you believe that Washington will pull out all troops from Afghanistan by 2014 if the Bilateral Security Agreement with Kabul is not signed within the next few months?

A: Obama wants Zero Troops. He’ll withdraw if he can whatever the excuse.

...


Q: India has helped Afghanistan with a number of developmental projects but has publicly espoused a “keep our heads down” policy in Afghanistan. Do you think this policy has worked?

A: No. The Afghans are not masters of their own destiny. India’s efforts failed to convince the US that it has a legitimate role in Afghanistan. It has been a near total waste.

Yossef Bodansky, former director of the United States Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare at the US House of Representatives, is an old South Asia hand, who had first warned of the Pakistan-China nexus in the 1990s.

He was also the first analyst to warn the world about Osama bin Laden and the Islamist terrorist network. Bodansky, who has written extensively on India and interacted with senior Indian officials over the years, believes that India has failed to take the strategic initiative that the post-Cold War period opened up and hence has witnessed a failure of its Afghan policy among others. Bodansky has been the director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), as well as a senior editor for the Defense & Foreign Affairs group of publications, since 1983. He stayed on as a special adviser to Congress until January 2009. In the mid 1980s, he acted as a senior consultantfor the US department of defense and the department of state. He is the author of 11 books —including Bin Laden: TheMan Who Declared War on America (New York Times No.1 bestseller & Washington Post No.1 bestseller), The Secret History of the Iraq War (New York Times bestseller & Foreign Affairs Magazine bestseller), and Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda’sTraining Ground and the Next Wave of Terror — and hundreds of articles, book chapters and Congressional reports. Mr Bodansky is a director at the Prague Society for International Cooperation, and serves on the Board of the Global Panel Foundation and several other institutions worldwide.

[Garooda]

India_US_Relations

U.S.-India summit comes as relations between the two languish
Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meet Friday. A partnership that once seemed unlimited is now marked by frustration.

September 27, 2013, 4:00 a.m.
NEW DELHI — Although economics, trade, security and nuclear energy will figure prominently when President Obama meets with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington on Friday, the elephant in the room will be a growing disenchantment with a relationship once thought to have near-unlimited potential.

After a hard-fought battle in both countries to finalize the 2008 U.S.-Indian civil nuclear agreement — essentially allowing India to regain full international standing after it was sanctioned for testing nuclear devices in 1974 and 1998 — many on both sides of the Pacific I wonder who in particular expected ties to strengthen.

But instead frustration has mounted since then. The U.S. has bridled at India's perceived unwillingness to open markets, provide adequate support on international crises or cut through red tape and settle tax and protectionist issues.

India, meanwhile, is bothered by what it sees as a sense of entitlement among U.S. companies to the lion's share of nuclear and defense contracts because of closer political ties Yea right...more so bikaau politicians. New Delhi, which is seeking a seat on the U.N. Security Council, also feels it's being unfairly viewed as a regional counterweight to China when it's focused on more pressing domestic issues.

"I feel there is a kind of slackening of tempo in India-U.S. relations," said Salman Haider, a New Delhi-based analyst and a former Indian foreign secretary. "A top-level reaffirmation is desirable."

Few deals are expected to result from Friday's summit, the third between the U.S. and Indian leaders in four years, especially at a time when concessions are difficult because of India's upcoming general election. Singh turned 81 on Thursday, and this is likely to be his last official meeting with Obama, Is that a hint? Is MMS done in India or is it because Obama is done with his term as POTUS? said Vinod Kumar, an analyst with New Delhi's Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses.

That said, the two sides appear keen to show at least modest progress, with an agreement expected between Nuclear Power Corp. of India and Westinghouse Electric Corp. to build reactors in India's northwestern Gujarat state.

The U.S. will be looking for reassurance that India is tackling its economic woes. In recent months, India's currency has depreciated, and the country has seen worsening fiscal and current account deficits, volatile markets, more capital controls and greater protectionism.

Though many developing countries have faced problems as international capital has gravitated toward the relatively robust U.S. market, India's problems are made worse by political infighting, policy drift and massive corruption scandals, all of which have helped undermine consumer and investor confidence.

U.S. companies in particular are unhappy with requirements that a significant portion of their exports to India include content made by local companies. Also bothersome, they say, are uncertainty over taxation and restrictions on foreign companies investing in the Indian pension and insurance sectors.

"There is very little the prime minister can do personally to change any of this," said Milan Vaishnav, an analyst with Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But they at least want some reassurance that the government hears their concerns and is willing to take some remedial steps to address them."

India, meanwhile, will probably be looking for assurance that it remains a central part of the U.S. strategic pivot toward the Asia-Pacific region. It will also look for better terms under America's H-1B visa program for foreign high-tech workers coming to or already in the United States. And, as the world's largest weapons importer, India seeks more joint design, development and production in defense projects.

Some in Washington wonder whether New Delhi actually wants significantly closer ties with the U.S. right now, even as India's allure as a rising power diminishes.

"All of this, combined with general elections around the corner, mean that American expectations are low," said Dhruva Jaishankar, a fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington. "The perception of economic turnaround would, however, change a lot."

Both sides are also likely to discuss India's neighbor Afghanistan, where U.S.-led NATO combat troops are preparing to withdraw by the end of 2014 amid concern that a resurgent Taliban could further destabilize the region.

Obama and Singh are also expected to discuss a proposed bilateral investment treaty. U.S. companies welcomed a recent Indian concession allowing commercial disputes to be settled by international arbitration rather than through India's often creaky courts, but they still view economic reforms as too slow. India counters that it's moving at its own pace, and cites recently eased restrictions on foreign retailers.

Liability issues remain a major sticking point with the cornerstone civil nuclear deal, which allowed India to acquire nuclear fuel for civilian use from suppliers around the globe. Under a 2010 Indian law, foreign suppliers assume nearly unlimited liability for accidents.

Fresh in Indians' minds is the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, which killed from 2,200 to more than 8,000 people, and the perception that U.S.-based chemical firm Union Carbide shirked its responsibilities. U.S. companies counter that open-ended liability is unworkable and out of step with international norms.

Special correspondent Sharma reported from New Delhi and Times staff writer Magnier from Islamabad, Pakistan.

[RamaY]

Rudradev garu

Thanks for posting that innerview.

If India focused on getting back PoK at an opportune time (even if it means creating opportunities for it) things will take a different turn.

I think NDA1 missed two such opportunities one during Kargil and another during Op-Parakram.

Once India reclaims PoK, it will become a world power and will checkmate many players.

[RamaY]

Q: Despite being aware that Pakistan has directly or indirectly aided the insurgency in Afghanistan, Washington seems to be going out of its way to cede control of south and eastern Afghanistan to Pakistan. What precisely is the strategic thinking behind these moves? And do you believe that such a move will stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan?

A: This is what Pakistan wants and this is what will make China happy.

I think it a game to secure world oil-reserves.

- The Sunni block is completely in US' hands
- Russia controls the norther-block
- South-America is US' backyard and is far from others to really do anything

This leaves Iran. I think by allowing China to create a corridor thru PoK, Pakistan to Iran; Iran will fall under Chinese influence and slowly get away from Russian circle.

Since majority of China's energy requirements are to indirectly support US' consumption, China is a better player to control these resources than say India or Russia.

In addition, this could be the price China might have demanded in return for it investing in US bond market. So basically China is paying those $B to get hold of Iranian resources.

***
This brings back one of the assessments I made.

India becoming a world power is a $150-200B project at the max. The outcome of this project would be -
*/ Recapture PoK (Cost of War preparations and war)
*/ Cover any economic/political sanctions

The benefits would be
*/ Reduced Oil Imports costs (I would put the savings somewhere in $20-30B per year)
*/ Increased Geopolitical Influence (I would the value of this anywhere between $15-25B per year, in terms of favorable economic/trade conditions)
*/ Savings from JK migraine (Value $5-10B per year - There is an economic penalty on entire India due to JK nonsense)

In-direct benefits
*/ Additional Costs to China (anywhere between $20-30B per year)
*/ Additional Costs to Pakistan and its 3.5 friends (anywhere between $20-30B per year)

So we are looking at an ROI within 4 years at worst and 2 years at best. Not a bad business deal.

[Rudradev]

RamaY garu, I think it's hard to put specific monetary values on the benefits that would accrue from reclaiming POK/NA. In fact, I think it's counterproductive to think of it in monetary terms at all, because if we debate at that level then some Jairam Ramesh or Shashi Tharoor type number-spinner can confuse the issue by introducing some other bogus values to skew the cost-benefit ratio. Fact is, POK/NA are part of our sacred geography and that alone should be the reason, even in public discourse, for reclaiming them. Hopefully (so many hopes riding on the poor guy's shoulders already, but anyway) NaMo will bring about a total refurbishment of the parameters of public discourse, wherein this line of argument, instead of the MMS/Chidambaram "dollar figure" line, will begin to define the way India thinks about herself and her role in the world. So far we've had the Nehruvian Panchsheel framework and the MMS/Chidu WTO framework; NaMo might bring in a framework that better empowers policy-making based on truth for its own sake.

Speaking of MMS: the latest antics by Pappu, of publicly trashing the criminal-MP ordinance drafted by MMS' cabinet, has happened exactly at the time of MMS' visit to the US. Neither Nawaz Sharif nor Obama is going to be blind to the implications of this. Pappu may have done us a favour in both cases. Sharif will know that any declarations or promises by MMS may not be worth anything by the end of the week. As for Obama, he should save himself the grocery bill and cancel the White House dinner invitation... it is budget-cutting time after all!

[RamaY]

^ Agree. I posted that for the consumption of 'e-CON-o-na-MY' first type guys.

I hope pappu takes over and goes to a war with Pakis on PoK just to prove that he too have things...

[CRamS]

RudraJi,

Uneven also made some similar observations to me as Bodansky does in that interview although not in blunt terms.

Lets look at the situation from a pure real-politick PoV. Lets give US benefit of doubt, i.e., its policy does not involve using TSP as a counterweight to India. Just real-poltick to get the best deal for itself. And likewise, India.

1. What India wants is an Afghanistan free from Paki Taliban medieval barbarism. US shares that view. But, thats where the concurrence in views ends. There are mountains of differences that simply cannot be overcome.

2. As long as that barbarism is contained to the region and does not affect US, US is fine with it.

3. India on other hand will be at the receiving end of that barbarism. Now, India has no real stomach to fight TSP, but would rather be in Afghanistan and influence and moderate Afghan opinion to be on its side or at best be neutral. Hence all this soft power that India brings to bear. This of course pisses TSP off no end, and US calls this "rivalry" between India & TSP for influence in Afghanistan. They are technically correct but flawed.

4. Furthermore, India, except for Paki lovers like MMS and his gang of "South Asian", WKK traitors, would like US to fight TSP. But US says kiss my ass, you would like us to fight TSP to our last marine, but you yourself won't put boots on the ground and instead hide behind this soft power BS. And thats what Bodansky and other US elites mean when they say India is not serious about being a "world power".

5. To add to India's woes, US sees a clear path of least resistance. It does not see too much value in fighting TSP and suffering huge human and other geo-political losses when there is an easy way out by just handing over Afghanistan to TSP with some red lines, i.e., no attacks on US or else Rawilpindi will be a parking lot and I'bad will be renamed Slumbad. (Gone are the immediate post 9/11 maacho days when football players, feminists, homosexuals, news anchors all signed up to fight in Afghanistan in a furious bout of jingoism. Reality has hit home now).

6. TSPA/ISI/RAPE welcome this deal with open arms especially since the deal is sugar coated with military arms, economic aid, equal equal with India, you name it.

7. Clearly, India's soft power in Afghanistan is complicating US plans and US is mighty pissed with India because India's very presence in Afghanistan causes unbearable anal itch and pain to TSP. One of the core elements of its India strategy crumbles to pieces if there were to be a neutral Afghan govt, let alone pro-India.

8. None of this TSP perfidy impresses US because this "rivalry between India & TSP cuts at the core of US interests to leave Afghanistan and declare victory.

[TSJones]

^^^^^ There are other considerations:

About 10,000 spooks and special ops will be left in Afghanistan. Their logistics convoys will still go through Pakistan.

The drones aren't going away. Waziristan is still a free fire zone. Al Quaeda is still there in all its manifestations and infestations. They will continue to need a good scrubbing from time to time.

[CRamS]

TSJones,

Not to mention routing entertainment and other collateral benefits that TSP & India will provide o US for sure like yesterday, TSP will use all its terrorist assets to provoke and humiliate India, India will profusely cry foul, while US laughs its ass off to the bank.

[RamaY]

CRamS garu

In addition to GoI not willing to commit boots on the ground, there is a promise of TSPA offering boots on the ground to extend US interests wherever required. That is what US needs if it wants future wars to be fought without american boots on the ground. That is why US is opting for desert revolutions, where paki boots can join american boots in the guise of al-keeda.

[Garooda]

I know the news is few days old.

Would Invite the thugs to gurudwara

NEW YORK: A Sikh professor, who was brutally attacked and injured by a mob of up to 30 people who called him "Osama" and "terrorist" here, has said he would invite the attackers to visit the gurdwara and interact with members of the community to better understand his faith.

Prabhjot Singh, assistant professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, said it is "absolutely critical" to work with students and community organisations to spread awareness about other faiths and religions.

"If I could speak to my attackers, I would ask them if they had any questions, if they knew what they were doing. May be invite them to the gurdwara where we worship, get to know who we are... Make sure they have an opportunity to move past this as well," a sombre looking Singh, wearing a blue turban, said in a press conference here yesterday.

Singh was brutally attacked by about 20-30 young men who repeatedly punched him and "pulled his beard" as he was walking in the city's Harlem neighbourhood on Saturday night. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he also works as a physician, and admitted with severe bruising, swelling, small puncture in his elbow and fracture in his lower jaw.

The New York Police Department has released a surveillance video of the suspects believed to be involved in the attack. The grainy clip shows a group of young 15-20 suspects riding their bikes shortly before they encountered Singh as he walking with a friend.

Two days after the attack, Singh, who has lived in the city for 10 years, said he will not be deterred from his goal of engaging with communities to educate and uplift people to make them become better human beings.

There is need to understand "who gave these kids the green light to hate."

"These sort of things are not who we are. This is not an America that I recognise," he added. He said the attack will not change "how I move around the neighbourhood."

He would continue going to all parts of the city, "will still go there and still be received with the degree of welcome that I have received.

"It is clear that the associations between beards and turbans and terrorism are devastating for an entire community, so I want to continue working to show that core American values are core Sikh values as well," said Singh.

Most importantly, I want it so that my 1-year-old has nothing to fear in this neighborhood. "It makes me even more committed to our community and redoubling our efforts," he said.

"I want to live in a community where somebody feels comfortable asking me what is on your head, why do you have that beard, what are you doing here, are you American. We should be able to ask those questions.

"I want to live in a community where young men instead of having to scream out and act out, can engage and learn about it some other way," Singh said as he lisped a little due to the injury to his mouth.

Recalling the attack, Singh said as he passed the group of men, he heard one of the men shout "get him Osama" and "terrorist".

"There is a sensational aspect to this and there is painful aspect to this. I was called 'Get him Osama', I heard terrorist, my beard was pulled. It certainly felt that it was motivated by my appearance."

Singh is working with the New York police department's hate crime unit, which is trying to solve the case on a "priority" basis.

Last year, Singh had written an op-ed in the New York Times days after six Sikh persons were killed in a tragic shooting at a Wisconsin gurdwara in August.

"The legacy of anti-Sikh violence and its contemporary prevalence make it painfully obvious that anti-Sikh violence is often purposeful and targeted. The government must begin tracking and counting anti-Sikh hate crimes, just as it must continue to vigorously combat bias and discrimination against all Americans, including Muslims.

"We must do away with a flawed and incomplete assumption of 'mistaken identity' regarding Sikhs; until we do, we will all be the ones who are mistaken," he had written in the op-ed titled 'How Hate Gets Counted.'

Singh said Sikhs across the world are known for their helpful nature and decorated service in the military.

"You see a (Sikh) face and look for help, that is what we are here to do," he said.

Rights group the Sikh Coalition said the attack on Singh is a "tremendous blow" not just to Sikh Americans but to the ideals of all New Yorkers.

"What happened did not happen in a vacuum. Here in New York City we regularly receive reports that Sikh school children are called 'Bin Laden' or 'terrorist' by classmates and sometimes endure physical violence," programme director of the Sikh Coalition Amardeep Singh said.

The incident comes less than two weeks after the first- ever nationwide public perception assessment of Sikh Americans, titled "Turban Myths," showed 70 per cent of Americans misidentify turban-wearers in the US as Muslim, Hindu or Buddhists.

The study, conducted by Stanford University researchers and sponsored by Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund, also showed that nearly half of Americans believe "Sikh" is a sect of Islam, and more associate the turban with Osama bin Laden than with named Muslim and Sikh alternatives.

"Unfortunately our research confirms that Prabhjot's experience is not the result of isolated misperception and intolerance," said Jasjit Singh, SALDEF's executive director.

"Here you have a practicing doctor, a teacher and a community servant falling victim to hate in the largest and proudest melting pot in America. This violence is an affront to all Americans' core values."

[Garooda]

CNBC_Chootiya

'Are they good at 7-Eleven?' CNBC 'Squawk Box' co-host Joe Kernen uses racial stereotypes, offensive Indian accent on air

'Are they good at 7-Eleven?' CNBC 'Squawk Box' co-host Joe Kernen uses racial stereotypes, offensive Indian accent on air
Kernen apologized following the awkward exchange with colleagues Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. 'Alright, I'm sorry, I take it back. I apologize, before I have to.'

CNBC's Joe Kernen used a horrific Indian accent when saying 'Gandhi' on the air Friday.
.
. ."Are they good at 7-Eleven?"

CNBC "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen put his foot squarely in his mouth during Friday's show when a light exchange about India's currency turned tasteless.

Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin were discussing India's central bank when Quick mentioned that she still had rupees left from a trip abroad.

The conversation quickly devolved when she displayed a two rupee bills — a 50 and a 10.

"Gandhi's on the rupee. Look at that," Sorkin said.

Kernen repeatedly said "Gandhi" in a bad Indian accent, but the conversation only deteriorated from there.

"No, I can't do it. I was going to say something," Kernen said.

Perhaps sensing what was coming next, Quick said, "Please don't."

"I really can't?" Kernan responded.

"No, you can't," said Quick.

Undaunted, Kernan responded: "Are they good at 7-Eleven?"

After Quick admonishes him for the "insulting" comment, Kernen tries to backtrack: "It is. Alright, I'm sorry, I take it back. I apologize, before I have to."
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