India and US - III

08-11-2009, 03:01 AM

US warns its citizen in India of possible terror attack before I-Day

Do they have any information?

dhu · (This post was last modified: 08-15-2009, 05:16 AM by dhu.)

India busy harassing N. Koreans under Amerikan "guidance". Indian nuclear scientists have taken on inspector role for Americans.

N-scientists to search Iraq-bound N Korean ship

QUOTEThe seized North Korean ship is being brought to Kakinada port in Andhra Pradesh where central security agencies and nuclear scientists will carry out an extensive search of the vessel M V Mu San intercepted off Andaman and Nicobar coast while awaiting clearance to proceed to Iraq.

The ship's 39-member crew, which also includes a North Korean government official would be questioned in the port itself, official sources said.

The sources said presence of a government official in a merchant vessel has aroused suspicions. The questioning of the crew got delayed due to non-availability of a Korean interpreter, they said, adding this was a unique ship where none were fluent in English language. A lady interpreter was despatched by the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday.

During the initial round of questioning of the ship's Captain, which was made possible with the help of a local interpreter in Andaman and Nicobar Island it emerged that the ship, carrying 16,500 metric tones of sugar, was on its way to Iraq after loading in Thailand, the sources said.

The Captain, who spoke in broken English, reportedly said the ship had developed a technical snag and that he had to change the piston besides carrying out some other mechanical work.

The crew was instructed by their handlers to wait for fresh instructions before leaving the Indian waters. The M V Mu San dropped anchor off Hut Bay island in the Andaman islands on August six without permission and was detained by the coastguard after a over six-hour chase.

added:

Bravo India: Henry Kissinger

QUOTEWashington, August 14: The detention of a North Korean ship that had dropped anchor without permission in Indian waters was a "very positive" sign on part of New Delhi, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said.

"India is imposing the Security Council resolution, and I think it is a very positive sign," Kissinger told the Fox News in an interview.

"India has been very cooperative with us, and they had very many parallel interests with respect to Islamic terrorism and with respect to the nuclear danger," he said.

India had detained the North Korean ship MV Mu San last week off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands after it dropped anchor without permission. The detention and a search that followed was in line with a UN resolution allowing inspection of air, ship and land cargoes in and out of North Korea.

08-29-2009, 03:04 AM

QUOTEIndia's Mahindra seeks to buy U.S. factory to build pickups
Automotive News ^ | August 28, 2009 - 4:16 am ET |Â
Posted on Fri Aug 28 2009 13:12:17 GMT-0700Â

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., seeking to dodge costly import duties on its pioneering India-made pickups, may buy an existing U.S. plant to build them.

Pravin Shah, Mahindra's executive vice president of international operations, told reporters today in New Delhi that such a purchase would be Mahindra's most economically feasible path.

"We are exploring various options," he said.

The comments signal a change in Mahindra's U.S. strategy.

In May, senior company officials said they would most likely avoid the 25 percent "chicken tax" on imported pickups by having a third-party manufacturer assemble the trucks here from knock-down kits.

Mahindra, which already makes farm tractors in Calhoun, Ga., plans to enter the U.S. passenger-vehicle market early next year with a compact diesel-engine pickup made in India.

Change of plans

Under the plan outlined in May, the company would import completed trucks at first and pay the 25 percent tariff. The company would then have the trucks assembled in the United States by an outside firm as volume increased.

In January 2008, project officials said they were close to announcing an agreement with an unidentified Ohio truck manufacturer to do the pickup assembly. Such an agreement was never announced.

Mahindra has changed its U.S. plans before. This summer, the company delayed its market entry for the second time. Originally, it was planned for early 2009. It was then delayed until fourth quarter 2009. Now it is slated for first quarter 2010.

Officials have attributed the setbacks to last-minute product changes requested by U.S. retailers and recommended by consultants at J.D. Power and Associates.

330 dealers

Dealerships have been built in Florida, Georgia and Ohio in preparation for the launch. Mahindra's independent distributor, Global Vehicles U.S.A. Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., says 330 dealers have been signed to sell the trucks.

Last week, a dealer in Birmingham, Ala., declared his intention to become that market's second Mahindra dealer.

Following the launch of the pickup, Mahindra intends to introduce a compact diesel-engine SUV based on its Indian-market Scorpio, along with model variations to follow. All models will feature a four-cylinder clean-diesel engine.

Shah said the pickups will be "competitively priced," adding that the United States would become the company's largest export market in "some time."

Mahindra has planned a total outlay of about $100 million for the U.S. launches of the pickups. Shah said about $80 million has been spent.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 10-05-2009, 07:07 PM by Husky.)

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/10/alm...e-to-jihad.html
QUOTEalmost all yank aid has gone to jihad against india: They realize this now?
oct 4th, 2009

actually they knew it all along. but yanks don't give two hoots about india.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajan

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_wasted_aid_to_pakistan

r

Posted by nizhal yoddha at 10/05/2009 12:18:00 AM 0 commentsAs innocent and invisible as the christobritish vampire - I said empire, as the christobritish empire.

10-08-2009, 12:19 AM

Obama to honor India with his first state dinner

Now you know nothing is going to happen to jeopardise this tremendous honor (cuz they say so) bestowed on India... <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_cowboy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_cowboy.gif' /> - No bum tests or TN Tests, period.

10-13-2009, 03:01 AM

U.S. report cites illegal payments by firms to Indian entitiesQUOTENEW DELHI: A United States government report on corrupt practices, released in May this year, mentions âillegal paymentsâ to several Indian entities, including state-owned enterprises, by American companies. These firms have admitted to wrong-doing and paying of bribes to secure orders.

The Indian Navy, employees of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, the Railways, the Central Insecticides Board and a âgovernment officialâ have been mentioned as bribe receivers during 2000-06, covering the National Democratic Alliance regime as well as the United Progressive Alliance rule at the Centre.
...

The payments to Indian Navy âofficialsâ is the most startling. Small sums of around $1,000 were paid over 6 to 7 years from 2000-06 by agents of York. The total sum paid amounted to around $1,32,500. The company dealing with heating and refrigeration equipment paid the bribes to secure 215 contracts, Ms. Shankar had written quoting from the U.S. report.

International Corporation agreed to pay fines under the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It has admitted to paying bribes to secure orders in the Middle-East, China, Nigeria, Europe and India.

It seems York retained an agent in India for its operation to help secure after-installation service contracts and provide sales and marketing support in connection with equipment sold to the Navy. An employee of the agent admitted to making âroutine paymentsâ to Navy officials to secure business for York between 2000 and 2006.

Employees of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board also received âillegal paymentsâ from the American company Mario Covino of Control Companies Inc. This company, dealing in industrial valves, has pleaded guilty to bribing officials in four countries. Over $1 million was given as bribe by this company to entities in four countries.

Employees of the Indian Railways received $ 1,37,400 between 2000 and 2005 â covering mostly the National Democratic Alliance tenure. Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (WABTEC) admitted to bribe-giving. It pleaded guilty, saying its Indian subsidiary, Pioneer Friction Ltd., made illegal payments to employees of the Railways.

Details of several other scandals involving bribe giving have been listed . Dow Chemicals paid $ 2,00,000 in India, including over $39,000 to an official of the Central Insecticides Board , $19,000 to government business officials, $11,800 to sales tax officials, $3,700 to excise tax officials and $1,500 to customs men.

An American oil and gas company disclosed that it âmay have paidâ money to a âthird partyâ with the intention that the money be âtransferred to a government official in Indiaâ to help resolve a customs tax dispute.

**shamu** · 10-13-2009, 03:06 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Oct 13 2009, 03:01 AM)U.S. report cites illegal payments by firms to Indian entities

Indian government should demand that the representatives of those companies are made available in India for trial?

10-15-2009, 07:56 AM

QUOTE(shamu @ Oct 13 2009, 03:06 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mudy @ Oct 13 2009, 03:01 AM)U.S. report cites illegal payments by firms to Indian entities

Indian government should demand that the representatives of those companies are made available in India for trial?
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</div>
Under US law, they had provided information, now question is whether Indian Govt will go after its own people.

10-15-2009, 07:57 AM

Radioactive US ship anchors in Alang; probe orderedQUOTEAn inquiry has been ordered into reports that an allegedly radioactive contaminated ship from the United States has anchored at the ship-breaking yards of Alang in Gujarat, the government said on Wednesday.

"We have got complaints that a radioactive contaminated ship has anchored at Alang. We have already ordered an inquiry into the matter and hope to get the report within the next two days," said Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh

10-27-2009, 11:00 AM

US lauds UPA Govt for respecting religious freedomQUOTEUPA-led government at the centre is quite committed to religious freedom, but it has "concerns" on this issues at the local level, specially those states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Obama Administration's first Annual Report on International Religions Freedom, between July 2008 and June 2009 has said.

"The Government at the central level is quite committed and it's also, as you know, a very diverseâ religiously diverse society, where, in fact, a lot of religions were born and nurtured. I think at a local level we have some concerns, and there are some specific instances mentioned in the report," Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Michael H Posner, told reporters after the release of the Congressionally mandated annual report.

"The response to violence, for example, in one case where a Hindu religious leader was killed and there was a spate of violence that affected mainly a Christian population and 40-some people killed." "So we are very mindful that there are still inner religious tensions within the society, and I think our focus would be on the lack of response at a local level rather than a national â the national policy is good. It's a question of how it's implemented at a local level," Posner said.

10-30-2009, 11:09 AM

Bush dinner tastes sour for Obama- PMO decision to entertain former President causes hurt in WashingtonQUOTEWashington, Oct. 24: Preparations for Manmohan Singhâs visit to Washington on November 24 have begun on a negative signal to the Obama administration with a decision by the Prime Ministerâs Office (PMO) to host former President George W. Bush for dinner at Singhâs residence at the end of this month.

Bush is visiting New Delhi on October 30 and 31 at the invitation of an Indian newspaper and will speak at a conference organised in New Delhi on October 31 on âAmerica Re-engaging with the World: Challenges, Opportunities and Risksâ.

Arguably stung by the PMOâs insensitivity in ostentatiously receiving the bete noir of the Democratic establishment here just over three weeks before Singhâs arrival at the White House, the Obama administration announced yesterday that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will make her first trip to Islamabad.

Clinton, a long-time friend of India, has tried her best to prevent a return to hyphenated Indo-Pakistan relations under the Obama administration and had refused to include Pakistan in the 229,528km that she has flown in her nine months in office.

Despite the strategic importance of Pakistan in the Afghan conundrum that is confronting President Barack Obama, Clinton has so far left it to her minions to deal with the broad leadership in Islamabad.

But that will change with her first trip, which was significantly announced at a briefing by Richard Holbrooke, Obamaâs special envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose prickly equations with New Delhi are well publicised here.

On the record, of course, no one in the Obama administration will say anything negative about the Bush trip to India because civility in political discourse is valued in the US. Nor will they suggest a Bush-India link in Clintonâs sudden decision to travel to Islamabad âsoonâ.

A source close to Clinton, however, said she recalled being kept hanging in her Senate office in 2001 while Sonia Gandhi repeatedly changed plans to meet her. The Indian embassy here had advised the Congress president that the Bush administration would not look favourably on a meeting with the former First Lady-turned-Democratic Senator from New York.

Instructions have gone out from the state department to the US embassy in New Delhi to extend all the courtesies that are due to a former American head of state and the ambassador in New Delhi, Timothy Roemer, will be correct, but not effusive in dealing with Bush.

But in private conversations, officials of the Obama administration, especially Democratic political appointees, make no secret of their sense of hurt over New Delhiâs decision.

This sense of hurt is shared by liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill, where enthusiasm about the Prime Ministerâs visit was palpable until it became widely known here that the man whom many of them consider to be a war criminal is being needlessly feted in New Delhi at this time.

âWe are rolling out the red carpet for your Prime Minister,â pointed out one Obama administration official. âSinghâs is the first state visit to be organised by the Obama administration. And what do you do? Invite the man who triggered the end of my countryâs superpower status and brought shame to America worldwide.â

Said a Congressional aide: âIn New Delhi people have been complaining for nine months, quite mistakenly, that Obama has downgraded the relationship with India. You have complaints about Obamaâs nuclear policy, his climate policy and his trade policy.

âSo the President decides to organise a grand show of bonhomie with your Prime Minister in the White House. Instead of making the most of this opportunity by both sides, your response is to slap us in the face by inviting the one man who is responsible for most of the problems on Obamaâs shoulders.â

11-01-2009, 11:33 AM

When UNSC is expanded, India will be a part: Bush
Bush proves to be the president of funny walk

11-01-2009, 11:47 AM

Doing us an ex-presidential favour
QUOTE Sometimes there is no substitute for the personal touch. Almost everybody who attended the George W Bush session at yesterdayâs Hindustan Times Leadership Summit was astonished by how different the real Bush seemed from his media image. He was warm, witty, self-deprecating and willing to engage with the audience and me on a variety of sensitive issues. Had he screwed up the post-invasion planning in Iraq? Had a lack of regulation under his administration contributed to the economic crisis? Did his policies lead to a radicalisation of Muslims all over the world?
But while many of us were impressed by Bushâs openness, I was also struck by some of the things he said about the India-US relationship.

You donât have to be Manmohan Singh to recognise that Bush has been more pro-India than any US President in recent memory. Judging by his session at yesterdayâs summit, he is impressed by the vibrancy of our democracy, our commitment to secularism and our success as a knowledge power. His time in office reflected his admiration for India. He worked to bring democratic India closer to the US as a counter to the Americaâs relationships with other less democratic Asian allies.

Given that he likes India and that he was speaking frankly, it was interesting to hear Bushâs views on the Washington-New Delhi relationship. His blunt realism came as a refreshing contrast to much of the airy-fairy stuff we hear from American stooges in politics and the media.
First of all, he dispelled much of the needless euphoria about our allegedly impending elevation to Permanent Member status at the Security Council. For many years now, we have been fed the line that if we suck up to the US on strategic issues, on climate change, etc. America will push to make India a Permanent Member.

Bush explained the position clearly. The whole issue of UN reform, he said, was complicated. If the UN did include more members along with the Big Five in the Security Council then there was no doubt that India had a claim to a seat on the table. But, he added, so did Japan. And Brazil. And many other countries. By his reckoning, the Big Five could not become the Big Six. It would have to be the Big Ten at the very least.

Could the Security Council function with ten Permanent Members? Would they all have veto powers? If so, wouldnât this turn decision-making into an unwieldy and almost impossible process?

The big question during his time at the White House, he recalled, was whether it would be possible to reform the Security Council at all given the problems that more Permanent Members would create for its structure. As far as he knew, America had still not made up its mind on this issue.

As for Indiaâs membership, he suggested, this was an issue that could be only taken up much later after the question of expansion of the Council had been resolved. And because no resolution seemed imminent, he did not think it was going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Thatâs worth keeping in mind. The next time somebody tells us that we need to keep the US in good humour because American goodwill will get us a seat at the Security Council, be very sceptical. Even Bush doesnât think itâs going to happen.

I asked Bush whether he agreed that Pakistan had conned America into parting with billions of dollars for the so-called war on terror. Not only had Pakistan not been a genuine ally, I said, it had also used the money to finance terror groups which attacked India.

My sense was that Bush was sympathetic to the Indian position but he was also categorical that Americaâs interests required it to support Pakistan as long as there was a war in Afghanistan. No matter how many times India was attacked, the US could not afford to jettison Pakistan as an ally.

He was as brutally realistic about China. His position was that the US had a relationship with China. India had to develop its own relationship. And as for Chinaâs position in the world, we had to learn to live with it.

 More worrying was the underlying tenor of his remarks. He seemed to believe that America, under Barack Obama, would move against outsourcing, would cut back on visas to Indians, and would favour a more protectionist approach to trade. This had not been his policy, he said. And he opposed stricter immigration barriers against Indians as well as protectionism. But his attitude suggested that we would have to steel ourselves for a change in American policy.

Many of us left the Bush session yesterday thinking long and hard about what he had said. There is no doubt that he has been a good friend to India and perhaps it is because he is our friend that he was candid about the constraints under which American foreign policy is formulated. Even a president with special affection for India can do only so much to change US policy which will always be determined by Americaâs strategic interests.

Bushâs pragmatism should serve as a counter to the foolish optimism preached by cheerleaders for America in our country. Of course, India must have good relations with the United States. We are the worldâs two largest democracies after all. And we have wasted many years in pointless hostility. But we must never forget that all great nations base their foreign policies not on the enthusiasms of individual leaders or on some notion of friendship. They base them on their own interests. And nothing will ever change that.

Itâs a lesson that New Delhi would do well to remember. If India is ever to become a great power, then our policies should not be based on a desire for American approval or the promise of illusory goodies (such as a permanent seat at the Security Council, for instance).

They must be based on a realistic appraisal of Indiaâs own interests in the 21st century.

11-18-2009, 10:50 PM

Are Asian voters swinging Republican?QUOTEProwling through the election returns in the governor races two weeks ago, I was surprised to find that Middlesex County, New Jersey, voted for Republican Chris Christie over Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by a 48%-44% margin, almost exactly the same as Christieâs 49%-45% statewide margin. Middlesex County has been a Democratic county for as long as I have been studying election returns (going back to the 1960 election). In close elections it voted 58%-42% for John Kennedy in 1960, 46%-43% for Hubert Humphrey in 1968 (when he failed to carry New Jersey), 51%-47% for Jimmy Carter in 1976, 46%-38% and 56%-32% for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, 60%-36% for Al Gore in 2000, 56%-43% for John Kerry in 2004 and 60%-39% for Barack Obama in 2008. Historically it was a white working class county, with old industrial cities like Perth Amboy and New Brunswick; its county Democratic leader was often the major Democratic power broker in state politics. You know the territory if youâve ever driven through the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.

Yet it voted for Christie over Corzine. As I drilled down in http://www.nj.com/politics/map/ the election results by city, borough and township, I saw that Christie carried Woodbridge Township by a 51%-42% margin and Edison Township by 49%-45% margin. These are the largest jurisdictions in the county, with about 100,000 people apiece, and Woodbridge was the political base of Jim McGreevey, who was elected governor in 2001 and resigned in 2004 after it was revealed that he had made his male lover head of the state homeland security department. Then I recalled thatÂ Middlesex County these days has an unusually large percentage of residents, 18%, who classify themselves to the Census Bureau as Asian. Thatâs one of the highest figures outside Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay area. And according to these figures from the Census Bureauâs American Community Survey

Edison townshipâs population is 36% âAsian only,â as compared to 49% âwhite onlyâ and 7% Hispanic, while. Woodbridge townshipâs population is 19% âAsian only,â as compared to 66% âwhite onlyâ and 15% Hispanics. The two townshipâs âblack onlyâ percentages are 10% and 9%. In other words, Asians are the largest and most visible minority in Edison and Woodbridge Townshipsâand are apparently largely of one source, Edison in 2000 had the highest percentage of Indian-ancestry residents, 18%, of any jurisdiction with more than 1,000 Indian-ancestry residents in the nation. Following it on the list were Iselin (part of Woodbridge Township), Plainsboro Township (in southern Middlesex County, adjacent to Princeton), Dayton (a part of South Brunswick Township in Middlesex County) and Avenel (part of Woodbridge Township).

What I think we are looking at is an upscale Indian cluster, around the pharmaceutical, scientific and technical firms in central New Jersey. These people appear to be upscale demographically; the Census Bureauâs American Community Survey reports that Middlesex County foreign-born residents (48% of whom are Asian, 26% Hispanic and 6% black) have a higher percentage of over-$75,000 earners than Middlesex County native-born residents, a higher percentage in management and professional occupations, a lower percentage of people in poverty, higher mean earnings, and nearly twice as high a percentage with graduate degrees and more likely to be in married couple families.

All this evidence strongly suggests that Republicans made gains and Democrats suffered significant losses among Asian, and specifically among Indian-American voters, in Middlesex County. This upscale group, ready enough to vote for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, seems to have been repelled by New Jerseyâs high taxes and big government under Jon Corzine. There should be some lessons here for Republicans generallyâand for Democrats as well.

A couple of additional notes. By my count (subject to arithmetic error) New Jerseyâs 7th congressional district, which includes Woodbridge Township and much of Edison Township, voted 56%-36% for Christie over Corzineâa sharp reversal of its 50%-49% preference for Obama over McCain in 2008. The Democratic Congressional Committee is running ads against its Republican Congressman, Leonard Lance, elected in 2008, for voting against the House Democratsâ health care bill; the results in the gubernatorial race suggest this is wasted effort and might even be counterproductive.

Plus, down in Virginia, Fairfax County, which is 16% âAsian onlyâ and which like Middlesex County voted 60%-39% for Barack Obama, voted 51%-49% for Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell. McDonnell campaigned heavily in Fairfaxâs immigrant communities and clearly made some inroads there.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/, Nationally, Asian voters went 62%-35% for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008, a number boosted by the fact that Obama carried Hawaii Asians, who make up 30% of the stateâs electorate, by a 68%-30% margin. But the election results in Middlesex and Fairfax Counties for 2009, with economic issues playing a greater and different role than they did in 2008, suggest that Republicans can make significant gains among this growing segment of the electorate. 

Why Indians switched side so fast?

ramana · 11-19-2009, 12:22 AM

Pocket book issues in both cases.

11-19-2009, 01:49 AM

QUOTE(ramana @ Nov 19 2009, 12:22 AM)Pocket book issues in both cases.
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Why not always? Majority of Indians move out because of Socialist Government which retard growth and works for few selected only, but when Indians migrates to different country, they still get attached with socialist party in adopted country. Babu culture of India is most disgusting side of India, and outside India, same Indian want to go back into that slum or want that kind of slum back in life.

11-19-2009, 10:57 PM

State Dinner : Who's in, Who's outQUOTEHis wife may be the Secretary of State but that doesn't mean Bill Clinton is coming to the party.

A spokesman for the former president says he will not be attending the state dinner honoring India on Tuesday.

The White House has been keeping a tight seal on the state dinner guest list â so much so that the only officially confirmed attendee is Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But the list canât be a state secret forever. Among the members of the White House Cabinet that will attend are: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who just spent several days in India promoting clean energy; and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice has been invited, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Invites donât go to only Democrats. Louisiana Governor and Indian-American Bobby Jindal, who gave the Republican response to President Obamaâs address to Congress earlier this year, is on the list â and plans to attend.

Some guests have decided to regret the invitations. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will be at home for Thanksgiving break. Lockheed Martin Corp. CEO Bob Stevens received an invitation, but decided to decline.

Equally of interest: who didnât make the cut? Admiral Michael Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not invited, even though the White House has traditionally invited the joint chiefs. Two key California Democrats werenât invited: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, one of Obamaâs biggest superdelegates during his campaign, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, who has been key in shepherding Obamaâs climate initiatives in the Senate. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) were also not invited.

On K Street, invitations were sparse, even among the head honchos. Prominent Democrats not on the guest list: longtime Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf â and former Al Gore chief of staff Jack Quinn, now co-founder of Quinn Gillespie. Quinn has been invited to at least two in the past. Elmendorf went once while working as a Capitol Hill staffer.

âI went to one under Clinton, when I was Gephardtâs chief of staff, [but] never as a lobbyist,â Elmendorf said.

R. Bruce McLean, chairman of Akin Gump, has seen no White House stationary lately. Mark Irion, CEO of Dutko Worldwide, puts it down to a faulty mail carrier.

âSadly, Iâve had a lot of problems with my mail,â Irion said. âIâve not been invited to a State Dinner. They may know of my penchant for stealing silverware.â

President Bush hosted a dinner for Singh in 2005, and some of the guests that attended have not been invited back. Dr. Julian Raby, director, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and Narender Reddy, the president of Sterling Realty Services Inc., have received no invitation.

Others who might have been expected to be in the mix, such as Ajit Jain, a protÃ©gÃ© of Warren Buffett, is a no-go. And don't expect to see M. Night Shyamalan at the State Dinner. His agent says he didn't score an invite.

In past years, the White House has also incorporated athletes from winning sports teams into its state dinner line-up. But a spokesman for the Yankees says he doesn't expect any players to show. Same goes for the Phillies.

A spokesman for the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers â owned by Obama pal also says no one on the team is expected to make an appearance at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Obama's original pick for Surgeon General, and Fareed Zakariah, who wrote a book the president said he was reading, are likely guests. Gupta did not reply to an e-mail seeking confirmation and a spokesperson for CNN did not respond to an inquiry on the invite.

Fashion designer Rachel Roy â whose clothes Michelle Obama has worn in the past -- also did not responding to calls about her attendance at the dinner.

11-23-2009, 11:03 PM

seems like Obama had pulled joke on Indian PM. <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Obama Thanks Hollywood With Coveted Invites To First White House State Dinner

11-24-2009, 11:57 PM

Glamour and taste: Obama tent feast to curry favour with IndiaQUOTEHollywood has been enlisted to provide some more: Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the billionaire founders of Dreamworks SKG, are all said to be on the list in recognition of their work as âbundlersâ of Hollywood donations to the Obama campaign. Mr Spielberg is also the beneficiary of a $550 million (Â£330 million) investment in his films by Anil Ambani, the Indian tycoon.

Mr Ambani will not be at the White House tonight, according to sources in the Indian delegation, but his older brother, Mukesh, will. He will join a third Indian billionaire, Ratan Tata, in a 13-strong group of business leaders whose presence in Washington with Mr Singh underlines the central theme of the first state visit of Mr Obamaâs presidency: commerce.

Trade and climate change dominated a rainy day of talks yesterday. Tonight, for a few hours, they will be eclipsed by the first big test of the Obamasâ ability to create something more memorable than mere politics, in what one White House veteran promised would be âthe most magnificent tent that you have ever been inâ

dhu · (This post was last modified: 11-25-2009, 12:27 AM by dhu.)

Rajeev Srinivasan on why he fears Dr Singh's State visit to Washington, DC may be disastrous.

QUOTEIn the old black-and-white Frank Capra film Mr Smith Goes to Washington an idealistic small-town man played by James Stewart is elected to the US Congress, where he is appalled by corrupt politics; but in the end his innocence wins over the blase denizens of the capital.

In a sense, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's [ Images ] trip to the US in the near future is being portrayed in the same way, but the Indian is neither as idealistic nor as naive as the Jimmy Stuart character, nor is there likely to be a happy ending.

US President Barack Hussein Obama [ Images ] has just returned from a tour of Asia. And exactly where did he go? China and Japan [ Images ], and also Singapore and South Korea, but not India [ Images ]. This one fact speaks volumes about the mind-share India occupies in the American establishment: India is not important. (Nor is it part of Asia according to them, but we will not digress. However we can be quite sure that a future Obama trip to India, if any, will be bracketed with one to Pakistan. Welcome to re-hyphenation.)

Obama's joint statement with Chinese strongman Hu Jintao could well have been written by the Chinese, when it comes to its perspective of India: It referred to the India-Pakistan problem and suggested that China should intervene in it. The implication is that China is the master of Asia, and that lesser powers such as India and Pakistan (yes, hyphenation again) must listen to China.

Then there was the recent appointment of Robin Raphel to the Richard Holbrooke [ Images ] team dealing with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Raphel is well-known as one of the most virulent and vitriolic critics of India in the entire US Democratic set-up. She was, until August, a registered and paid lobbyist for Pakistan. She is infamous for insisting that the accession of Jammu and Kashmir [ Images ] to India is not final, and for asserting that Pakistan is the very epitome of a 'model, modern, and moderate Muslim nation'.

On top of this, rediff.com reported last week that Christine Fair, who had rubbed Indian officials the wrong way recently regarding Baluchistan, was offered a job as the 'South Asia' expert in the Obama administration, which apparently she turned down.

The indications, therefore, are that the Obama administration does not take India seriously. All of the latter's hollow pretensions to great-power-hood have been seen through by the Democrats, one might think.

But if they are so smart, why do Democrats persist in kow-towing to China and pouring money into Pakistan? It must be because it is standard Democratic Party policy. Despite the illusions many Indians harbour, Democratic administrations have been nastier towards India in general, notwithstanding the sterling counter-example of the Republican Nixon-Kissinger duo sending the 7th Fleet to the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to intimidate India.

Liberal-left types in the West, despite protestations to the contrary, are fascinated by totalitarians and fascists. They are impressed by Vietnamese who defeated them, and Chinese who fought them to a standstill in Korea.

On the other hand, they despise a weak and moralising nation like India (some of them have not yet forgotten V K Krishna Menon's marathon speech at the United Nations, nor all the hot air about non-alignment.

Obama is the only US president in recent years to have refused to meet the Dalai Lama [ Images ], as appeasing China is high on his agenda; similarly the Democratic fascination with Mohammedan tyrants as well.

Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Obama may well be following in Jimmy Carter's footsteps. Carter, of MEOW fame (moral equivalent of war), who groveled to Middle-Easterners, bringing upon himself the Iran hostage crisis that destroyed his presidency.

Obama is going down this path with his Af-Pak policy, which consists primarily of outsourcing the Afghan problem to Pakistan's Inter Services intelligence, to be followed by the United States declaring victory and leaving. He is ignoring the instructive example of Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler [ Images ].

Meanwhile the ISI cannot believe its good luck: Obama is showering billions on it on top of the $11 billion that Bush has already given them, with nothing to show.

On top of this, there is an entire generation of Cold-War-era non-proliferation ayatollahs, many of them Democrats with ties to Obama, who believe India has no business maintaining a nuclear arsenal. These people are on the ascendant, and strangely they have no problem with proliferation by China or Pakistan: The The Washington Post reported how the CIA merely stood by and watched when China delivered two full-fledged nuclear bombs to Pakistan in 1982.

Shortly thereafter, Pakistan, as part of the A Q Khan nuclear Wal-Mart, happily proliferated these to third parties.

Quite clearly, the non-proliferation ayatollahs have a rather interesting twist on semantics: for them, 'proliferation' is defined as India creating a minimum deterrent to defend itself from two nearby rogue States. Of course, these are the same people who created treaty after treaty -- Non-Proliferation Treaty, Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- whose prime intent was to contain the Indian nuclear deterrent.

The respected Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported recently that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is bigger than India's, and that they are growing it rapidly. India has no more than 60 to 80 warheads, Pakistan at least 70 to 90, and China 240.

Of course, India is also handicapped by not having a proven delivery vehicle like an intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach Beijing [ Images ] (and also by having voluntarily declared a moratorium on nuclear testing). This should be enormous cause for concern for India, because it leaves India vulnerable to the blackmail of a first strike by Pakistan or China, neither of which has ever said they will not indulge in a first strike. India cannot deter them because the threat of a second strike is meaningless if the others's arsenals and delivery systems are bigger and more reliable.

On the political side, here is another fear -- about what Manmohan Singh may concede in Washington. His recent trips have left a trail of wreckage as far as India's foreign policy is concerned. This leads one to wonder whether the foreign ministry lacks the resources to brief the prime minister.

Look at what the PM has said on previous trips abroad:

In Britain in 2005, while receiving an honorary degree from Oxford, Singh said that colonialism had done India good. He claimed that India benefited from 'meeting the dominant empire of the day'. He omitted to mention that the dominant empire had stolen roughly $10 trillion, and left hitherto prosperous India poverty-stricken.

In Havana at the Non-Aligned Meet in 2006, Singh informed a delighted General Pervez Musharraf [ Images ] that Pakistan was also a victim of terrorism, just like India, and absolved the Pakistani State of involvement in acts of terrorism. This, almost immediately after the Mumbai [ Images ] blasts in July of that year.

In the US in 2008, with George Bush [ Images ] a lame duck and the Democrats rampant, Singh assured Bush: 'The people of India deeply love you'. Exactly how did Singh arrive at this conclusion? And how exactly did he think this would be received by the severely anti-Bush Democrats, who were likely to win?

In Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt [ Images ], in July 2009, Singh gratuitously introduced Balochistan into the Indo-Pakistan dialog and promised a delinking of talks from terrorism. The grateful Pakistanis are now using Balochistan as a major card in their propaganda claiming Indian malfeasance there. They have also concluded that the 26/11 Mumbai siege has now been forgotten by India -- that is, Pakistan can proceed with further acts of terrorism with no untoward consequences.

Aren't there people who know how to craft diplomatic verbiage that serves the usual purpose -- to obfuscate and mystify while sounding pious -- instead of having the PM say things that then require substantial damage control?

What might the PM agree to in Washington this time? One grim possibility looms. There is a lot of talk about the G-2 from people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former Cold Warrior and eminence grise extraordinaire (who can forget he was an admirer of Osama bin Laden [ Images ] in the old days?). The G-2, that is, the US and China, is to divide the world up among them: the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific to the US, while the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean Rim belong to China.

China is delighted to go with this prescription, which is reminiscent of Spain and Portugal dividing up the world between them with the Vatican's blessings some centuries ago. A few months ago, a Chinese admiral suggested precisely such an outcome: They would look after the Western Pacific, he kindly offered the Americans the eastern part of the Pacific.

It is entirely possible that, given the trial balloon of the Sino-US statement on China's role in South Asia, the Americans will convince Manmohan Singh to endorse the idea of the G-2. There will be the usual round of 'clarifications' and 'retractions' and howls about 'misquotes', but at the end of the day, it would be plain as daylight that India had publicly accepted banana-republic-dom in the Asian Century.

We have to be prepared for such an eventuality. And that is why the US does not respect India as a potential ally. India is only a source of raw materials and a market, just as the imperialists saw it. India does not deserve any respect, either. A wimpy India -- which cannot deter even a failed state like Pakistan -- is merely an extra in the big scheme of things.

A nation that has no long-term strategic intent, and whose leaders can be easily manipulated through flattery, is a banana republic. Unlike China, which intends to rule the world, India, which can only imagine itself as a second-rate power, will remain one. Welcome to realpolitik.

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