US- India relations
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| − | = | + | =2015: Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley= |
| − | + | ==Preparing for Mr Modi’s visit== | |
| + | [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/wikileaks-emails-throw-light-on-modis-silicon-valley-visit/1/784692.html PTI | Washington, October 11, 2016 | WikiLeaks emails reveal preparations for PM Narendra Modi's 2015 Silicon Valley visit] | ||
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| + | The email gives an insight into the preparations done by the US for a successful visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley in 2015. | ||
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| + | *US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia wrote an email to John Podesta on making the trip successful. | ||
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| + | *Biswal also wrote to checka if former US president Bill Clinton can co-host a clean energy event with Modi at Stanford. | ||
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| + | *Biswal in email said there is lot of interest in Indian govt to focus on two themes for Modi's Silicon Valley visit. | ||
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| + | The latest batch of emails released by WikiLeaks from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta gives an insight into the planning done by the Obama administration to ensure a successful visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley in 2015. | ||
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| + | More than a month and half before Modi was to visit Silicon Valley in the last week of September, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal wrote an email to John Podesta, who had by then joined the Clinton campaign, seeking his advice and input on making the trip successful and also checking if former US president Bill Clinton can co-host a clean energy event with Modi at Stanford. | ||
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| + | In an email to Podesta dated August 12, Biswal said there is a lot of interest in the Indian government to focus on two themes for the Silicon Valley visit. | ||
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| + | First is the digital economy, she wrote and added that here the focus will be a visit to Google and some announcements on Google's massive investments in India, she said. | ||
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| + | "The other focus is on clean energy. Here the Indians want to visit Tesla and hopefully announce a Tesla partnership/venture with India focusing on their battery storage system for solar energy," Biswal said. | ||
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| + | "The other major effort is around a clean energy roundtable with Stanford that commerce had been working on. It now seems (Commerce Secretary Penny) Pritzker cannot make it to California and the Indians are looking for some other USG (US government) principal to participate with industry, academia and government," she wrote. | ||
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| + | "Before I engage the WH (State Department) and State or DoE (Department of Energy), I wanted to see if you had thoughts on how we should approach this. The Indians have said that it would need to be a Cabinet rank principal to convene this with the PM (Prime Minister)," Biswal said. | ||
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| + | "We will of course see if Secretary (of State John) Kerry or Secretary (of Energy Earnest) Moniz can go to California that weekend but things are complicated by the (Chinese President) Xi (Jinpings) visit and the UNGA (UN General Assembly) schedule. Are there other options you would suggest we pursue?" she asked. | ||
| + | |||
| + | "Another option would be to see if (California) Governor (Jerry) Brown or perhaps President Clinton would be interested in co-hosting/convening. Also, would you want to participate in the roundtable? Let me know if you have thoughts on this or want to discuss," Biswal wrote as per the email released by WikiLeaks. | ||
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| + | The State Department has not authenticated the email. | ||
=2016= | =2016= | ||
Revision as of 12:39, 12 October 2016
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Visits of Indian Prime Ministers to the USA
US Presidents and the Indian Republic Day
Clinton said no to Rao's R-Day invite [ http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com//Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Clinton-said-no-to-Raos-R-Day-invite-25012015001069 The Times of India] Jan 25 2015
Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had invited then United States President Bill Clinton to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 1995.
Clinton, however, turned it down saying the dates clashed with his State of The Union address, former foreign secretary K Srinivasan, who served in the Rao regime, revealed in a television show. Srinivasan said that he had called up Strobe Talbott to extend the invite, but he replied in the negative after a few hours.
2014: H-1B visas
Source: The Times of India
1. The Times of India, Aug 13 2015
2. The Times of India, Aug 13 2015, Houston
`In 2014, US granted 86% of H-1B visas to Indians'
Almost 86% of H-1B visas that the US granted to IT employees in 2014 went to Indians, a Computerworld analysis of government data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows. Most of those H-1B visa holders work for outsourcing companies such as Infosys and TCS. China was far behind in second place at 5% of H-1B visas for IT occupations; no other nation rose above 1%, according to data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. About 76,000 H-1B visas were issued to software professionals in 2014. IT companies “apparently cannot get enough Indian programmers, which has little to do with a shortage of competent natives for these types of jobs, but a lot to do with the industry's business model,“ said Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at Georgetown University's Institute. “Young H-1B programmers are in demand because the visa offers control over this contracted shortterm workforce, it permits them to pay less than experienced natives and ability to cultivate programmers who can better serve their clients after returning to India“, Lowell said.
In case of H-1B visas for engineers, Indian workers are still on top with 47% of the visas, or 8,103, followed by China with 19.5%.
2015: Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley
Preparing for Mr Modi’s visit
The email gives an insight into the preparations done by the US for a successful visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley in 2015.
- US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia wrote an email to John Podesta on making the trip successful.
- Biswal also wrote to checka if former US president Bill Clinton can co-host a clean energy event with Modi at Stanford.
- Biswal in email said there is lot of interest in Indian govt to focus on two themes for Modi's Silicon Valley visit.
The latest batch of emails released by WikiLeaks from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta gives an insight into the planning done by the Obama administration to ensure a successful visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley in 2015.
More than a month and half before Modi was to visit Silicon Valley in the last week of September, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal wrote an email to John Podesta, who had by then joined the Clinton campaign, seeking his advice and input on making the trip successful and also checking if former US president Bill Clinton can co-host a clean energy event with Modi at Stanford.
In an email to Podesta dated August 12, Biswal said there is a lot of interest in the Indian government to focus on two themes for the Silicon Valley visit.
First is the digital economy, she wrote and added that here the focus will be a visit to Google and some announcements on Google's massive investments in India, she said.
"The other focus is on clean energy. Here the Indians want to visit Tesla and hopefully announce a Tesla partnership/venture with India focusing on their battery storage system for solar energy," Biswal said.
"The other major effort is around a clean energy roundtable with Stanford that commerce had been working on. It now seems (Commerce Secretary Penny) Pritzker cannot make it to California and the Indians are looking for some other USG (US government) principal to participate with industry, academia and government," she wrote.
"Before I engage the WH (State Department) and State or DoE (Department of Energy), I wanted to see if you had thoughts on how we should approach this. The Indians have said that it would need to be a Cabinet rank principal to convene this with the PM (Prime Minister)," Biswal said.
"We will of course see if Secretary (of State John) Kerry or Secretary (of Energy Earnest) Moniz can go to California that weekend but things are complicated by the (Chinese President) Xi (Jinpings) visit and the UNGA (UN General Assembly) schedule. Are there other options you would suggest we pursue?" she asked.
"Another option would be to see if (California) Governor (Jerry) Brown or perhaps President Clinton would be interested in co-hosting/convening. Also, would you want to participate in the roundtable? Let me know if you have thoughts on this or want to discuss," Biswal wrote as per the email released by WikiLeaks.
The State Department has not authenticated the email.
2016
Ups and downs
The Times of India, Jun 07 2016
Chidanand Rajghatta
Irony and paradox thrive in ties between India & US
Irony and paradox abound in India-US relations. Some of it will be evident when Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his fourth trip to the US in two years with a visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington just outside Washington DC, a monument to the fallen in the many wars America fought, some of which invited New Delhi's skepticism. Among them was the Vietnam War, the memorial to which is across from Arlington, and is made of black granite imported from Bangalore, at a time when India was an American bête-noire because of its mute acquiescence to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan and China were looked on favourably , but Indian doctors and engineers continued to stream into the US. Today , the US and India are partners in Afghanistan and beyond, leery of the China-Pakistan axis.
As Modi greets some of Indian-American elites at Blair House across from the White House ahead of his meeting with President Obama on Tuesday morning, US secretary of state John Kerry will be in Beijing trying to persuade China, which even today sends twice as many students to the US as India, to lift its blockade on India's entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group.Support from the Swiss would have heartened New Delhi as the Prime Minister headed out from Geneva to Washington DC, but NSG membership issue may not rank very high in Kerry's engagement with the Chinese in course of their annual bilateral dialogue that has gotten a little testy of late over primacy and territorial issues in the South China Sea.
In 2008, President George Bush picked up the phone to talk to China President Hu Jintao at a crucial moment to swing a waiver that enabled the civil nuclear deal for India.The atmosphere is not as propitious now, with China digging its heels over shepherding Pakistan into the NSG on India's coattails. But if every other country in the 48-member club -which ironically was formed in the aftermath of India's 1974 nuclear test to quarantine New Delhi -expresses its support for India's entry , then it will be Beijing that will have to contend with being isolated. China threw in the towel in 2008; most analysts think it is less likely now.
All of which points to China being the elephant in the room -and Pakistan the mouse -when Modi meets Obama in the Oval Office at 11 am on Tuesday (8.30 pm IST).Although the two sides are expected to engage on a raft of other issues, from discussing nuclear reactors to returning stolen antiques, Chi na will loom large, because, in the words of Ashley Tellis, a Carnegie Endowment scholar who has studied the issue extensively , “'US today sees India as a security partner of choice in the broader Indo-Pacific region.“ Everything else is subsumed by that great pivot.Even when it comes to trade, an area where US-China engagement has so far dwarfed US-India exchanges by a huge margin, some experts think Washington is starting to look towards New Delhi as China starts to slow down, despite doubts about India own dodgy performance.
Depending on which sector or constituency they belong to, experts break up the agenda for the visit into parts -from securing the NSG membership to military cooperation agreements to purchase of nuclear reactors to defense engagement to trade, manufacturing and jobs issues. A common thread running through everything is managing the rise -and now plateauing of -China.
