tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post5846827633223922510..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: India's Washington Lobby Emulates AIPACRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-86729295043037293172023-06-28T09:29:23.166-07:002023-06-28T09:29:23.166-07:00Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of I...Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of Israel as antisemitism, Hindu American organizations are advancing a concept of “Hinduphobia” that puts India beyond reproach.<br /><br />https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook<br /><br />Faced with rising scrutiny over India’s worsening human rights record, Hindu groups have used “the same playbook and even sometimes the same terms” as Israel-advocacy groups, “copy-pasted from the Zionist context,” said Nikhil Mandalaparthy of the anti-Hindutva group Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Hindu groups have especially taken note of their Jewish counterparts’ recent efforts to codify a definition of antisemitism—the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition—that places much criticism of Israel out-of-bounds, asserting that claims like “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” constitute examples of anti-Jewish bigotry. In April 2021, the Rutgers University chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC)—which the RSS has referred to as its “torch bearers abroad”—held a conference to generate a “robust working definition” of the term “Hinduphobia.” (The HSC did not respond to questions.) In an email to Jewish Currents, the HAF’s Shukla wrote that the effort was “similar to members of the Jewish community coalescing around the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.” The resulting definition refers to Hinduphobia as “a set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviors towards Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and Hindus that may manifest as prejudice, fear, or hatred.” Its examples of Hinduphobic speech—which were reiterated at an event in December by HAF managing director Samir Kalra—include “calling for the destruction and dissolution of Hinduism” and using ethnic slurs (Kalra cited examples like “cow-piss drinker,” “dothead,” and “heathen”). Although the definition never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples also include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity, such as the Teaneck Democrats’ resolution.<br /><br />Although the Rutgers definition of Hinduphobia never names India or the political project of Hindutva, its examples include “accusing those who organize around or speak about Hinduphobia . . . of being agents or pawns of violent, oppressive political agendas”—a characterization that is regularly applied to efforts to call out Hindu nationalist activity.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />On the HAF’s website, a glossary of Hinduphobic terms includes the word “Hindutvavadi,” or “someone who espouses or promotes Hindutva,” which the HAF says is “intended to demonize Hindu Americans and delegitimize the causes they advocate for.” It also contains the epithet “Bhakt,” or “devotee,” slang in India for die-hard supporters of the BJP, which the glossary says “presents Hindus through a simplistic, political binary of for or against,” adding that the term’s use “in conjunction with portrayals of Narendra Modi and his political party as supremacist or fascist” are “particularly egregious.” Naik called this logic “absurd”: “How can one take a criticism of a hateful ideology and conflate that with a religion?”<br /><br />Despite such contradictions, the concept of Hinduphobia has enjoyed a meteoric rise in usage in the wake of the Rutgers conference, gaining ground against terms like “anti-Hindu” or “anti-India” in the US. “I saw it grow over the past three or so years,” said anti-Hindutva advocate and journalist Pieter Friedrich, whose activism has recently been labeled “Hinduphobic” by the HSS and its affiliates.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-46452634470228120622023-06-28T09:23:38.771-07:002023-06-28T09:23:38.771-07:00Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of I...Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of Israel as antisemitism, Hindu American organizations are advancing a concept of “Hinduphobia” that puts India beyond reproach.<br /><br />https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook<br /><br />The Teaneck incident is one of many in which Hindu groups have worked to silence criticism of Hindu nationalism by decrying it as anti-Hindu or “Hinduphobic.” In 2013 and again in 2020, a coalition of such groups used allegations of “anti-Hindu bias” to prevent the passage of House Resolutions 417 and 745, both of which criticized Modi. In 2020, when progressives objected to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s decision to appoint Amit Jani, a close supporter of Modi, as his director for Asian American Pacific Islander outreach, the HAF denounced these criticisms as an example of “Hinduphobia.” (Biden retained Jani despite the protests.) “The Hindu right wants to distract from India’s catastrophic human rights record,” Audrey Truschke, a South Asia historian at Rutgers University, told Jewish Currents. “So there’s a lot of value in portraying Hindus as victimized people.”<br /><br />“The Hindu right wants to distract from India’s catastrophic human rights record. So there’s a lot of value in portraying Hindus as victimized people.”<br /><br />The HAF, the most influential Hindu American advocacy group, has spearheaded a number of these campaigns. Since its founding in 2003, the organization has been known for its work on Hindu civil rights issues; it has pushed for workplace religious protections, school holidays during Hindu festivals, and immigration reform for skilled professionals. But in recent years, it has increasingly sought to raise awareness about what it describes as a new form of anti-Hindu bias. HAF executive director Suhag Shukla told Jewish Currents in an email that while anti-Hindu sentiment in the US used to be animated by “anti-immigrant xenophobia or rooted in colorism, rather than specifically being about Hindus or Hinduism,” recent manifestations of anti-Hindu hatred are “paralleling political tensions arising in India,” and include “terminology and tropes” that originate in sectarian conflict in South Asia.<br /><br />“What the HAF is trying to do is to conflate Hindutva with Hinduism—to prove that a criticism of Hindutva is an attack on Hinduism,” said the Kashmiri American journalist Raqib Hameed Naik. “There is no doubt that the HAF subscribes to the ideology of Hindutva.” Asked to respond, HAF senior communications director Mat McDermott repeatedly called the allegation “nonsense.” “HAF does not, either officially or unofficially, ‘subscribe’ to Hindutva as an ideology,” he wrote in an email to Jewish Currents.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-74563667904326774232023-06-28T09:20:07.407-07:002023-06-28T09:20:07.407-07:00Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of I...Inspired by Jewish groups that cast criticism of Israel as antisemitism, Hindu American organizations are advancing a concept of “Hinduphobia” that puts India beyond reproach.<br /><br />https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook<br /><br />By Aparna Gopalan<br /><br />EVERY AUGUST, the township of Edison, New Jersey—where one in five residents is of Indian origin—holds a parade to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In 2022, a long line of floats rolled through the streets, decked out in images of Hindu deities and colorful advertisements for local businesses. People cheered from the sidelines or joined the cavalcade, dancing to pulsing Bollywood music. In the middle of the procession came another kind of vehicle: A wheel loader, which looks like a small bulldozer, rumbled along the route bearing an image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aloft in its bucket.<br /><br />For South Asian Muslims, the meaning of the addition was hard to miss. A few months earlier, during the month of Ramadan, Indian government officials had sent bulldozers into Delhi’s Muslim neighborhoods, where they damaged a mosque and leveled homes and storefronts. The Washington Post called the bulldozer “a polarizing symbol of state power under Narendra Modi,” whose ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly enacting a program of Hindu supremacy and Muslim subjugation. In the weeks after the parade, one Muslim resident of Edison, who is of Indian origin, told The New York Times that he understood the bulldozer much as Jews would a swastika or Black Americans would a Klansman’s hood. Its inclusion underscored the parade’s other nods to the ideology known as Hindutva, which seeks to transform India into an ethnonationalist Hindu state. The event’s grand marshal was the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, who flew in from India. Other invitees were affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international arm of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary force Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi is a longtime member.<br /><br />Initially, New Jersey politicians—including Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez and Edison mayor Sam Joshi—decried the parade. In September, the Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee, a local wing of the New Jersey Democratic Party, passed a resolution condemning the event and calling for a crackdown on what they described as Hindu nationalist groups’ operations in the state. The resolution alleged ties between several Hindu organizations—including a prominent Washington, DC-based advocacy group called the Hindu American Foundation (HAF)—and the RSS, and called on the FBI and CIA to “step up [their] research on foreign hate groups that have domestic branches with tax-exempt status.” It also called for the revision of anti-terrorism laws to “address foreign violent extremists with speaking engagements in the US.”<br /><br />But soon after the Teaneck resolution was adopted, nearly 60 Hindu American groups released a statement that shifted the conversation away from rising Hindu nationalism toward fears of Hindu victimization. The signatories—who made no mention of the wheel loader, Modi, or the RSS—claimed that the “hate-filled” Teaneck resolution “[demonizes] the entire Hindu American community.” A couple of weeks later, Hindu activists sponsored ten billboards in north and central New Jersey calling on Democrats to “Stop bigotry against Hindu Americans.” Before long, lawmakers began to denounce the resolution. Teaneck mayor James Dunleavy and New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer came out against the “anti-Hindu” Teaneck resolution; the New Jersey Democratic State Committee soon followed. In the coming weeks, Booker and Menendez both released statements condemning “anti-Hinduism.”<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-9026367217738529332023-06-13T13:04:59.665-07:002023-06-13T13:04:59.665-07:00India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential th...India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential than any in history<br />Adobe, Britain and Chanel are all run by people with Indian roots<br /><br /><br />https://www.economist.com/international/2023/06/12/indias-diaspora-is-bigger-and-more-influential-than-any-in-history<br /><br />The Indian government, by contrast, has been—at least until Mr Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) took over—filled with people whose view of the world had been at least partly shaped by an education in the West. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, studied at Cambridge. Mr Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, studied at both Oxford and Cambridge.<br /><br />India’s claims to be a democratic country steeped in liberal values help its diaspora integrate more readily in the West. The diaspora then binds India to the West in turn. The most stunning example of this emerged in 2008, when America signed an agreement that, in effect, recognised India as a nuclear power, despite its never having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (along with Pakistan and Israel). Lobbying and fundraising by Indian-Americans helped push the deal through America’s Congress.<br /><br />The Indian diaspora gets involved in politics back in India, too. Ahead of the 2014 general election, when Mr Modi first swept to power, one estimate suggests more than 8,000 overseas Indians from Britain and America flew to India to join his campaign. Many more used text messages and social media to turn out bjp votes from afar. They contributed unknown sums of money to the campaign.<br /><br />Under Mr Modi, India’s ties to the West have been tested. In a bid to reassert its status as a non-aligned power, India has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and stocked up on cheap Russian gas and fertiliser. Government officials spew nationalist rhetoric that pleases right-wing Hindu hotheads. And liberal freedoms are under attack. In March Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, was disqualified from parliament on a spurious defamation charge after an Indian court convicted him of criminal defamation. Meanwhile journalists are harassed and their offices raided by the authorities.<br /><br />Overseas Indians help ensure that neither India nor the West gives up on the other. Mr Modi knows he cannot afford to lose their support and that forcing hyphenated Indians to pick sides is out of the question. At a time when China and its friends want to face down a world order set by its rivals, it is vital for the West to keep India on side. Despite its backsliding, India remains invaluable—much like its migrants.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-71106102252805641562019-04-11T14:38:58.107-07:002019-04-11T14:38:58.107-07:00#Hindu Diaspora: a strategic ally of #Modi & #...#Hindu Diaspora: a strategic ally of #Modi & #BJP but a threat to “Idea of India” - #India #Hindutva #Islamophobia Global Village Space https://www.globalvillagespace.com/hindu-diaspora-a-strategic-ally-of-modi-bjp-but-a-threat-to-idea-of-india/<br /><br />By Ashok Swain, Prof of Peace and Conflict Resolution, Upsala University, Sweden <br /><br /><br />The rise of BJP is not only a severe threat to India’s accommodative and power-sharing politics but the peace and stability of the country as such. The Hindu chauvinist forces are exploiting religion to ferment communal oppression and violence in India, and these forces of injustice and bigotry are patronized by India’s large and powerful diaspora community.<br />--------<br /><br />This identity has not been limited to being cultural only but has also gradually become colored with the political ideology of Hindutva. ‘Hinduness’ or Hindutva can be described as a vision of India based on a “cultural nationalism” rooted in the Hindu majoritarian religious customs and traditions. The size and influence of the Hindu diaspora have leaped in the last two decades. As the Indian community in the West comes of age both in terms of numbers and financial capabilities, its political role has also evolved significantly.<br /><br />The origin of the Hindu Diaspora stems from the British and French colonial masters exporting indentured labor to their other colonies such as Fiji, Trinidad, and Jamaica, to the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique and the Dutch colony of Surinam. After the end of the 2nd World War and the country’s independence from colonial rule, Indians provided both labor and professional help with the reconstruction of war-torn Europe.<br /><br />From the 1960s, Indians started migrating to non-European developed countries due to their demand for well-educated and professionally trained workforce. However, the most significant wave of Indian migration came in the very end years of last century, with the movement of software engineers and other professionals to western countries – especially the United States.<br /><br />------------------<br /><br />The contribution of the Hindu diaspora is not anymore limited to domestic economic growth; it is also playing a significant role in supporting Indian foreign policy. The Indian government is taking regular help of its diaspora to promote its interest in the foreign capitals, mainly to counter Pakistan and China’s diplomatic offensives. The Hindu diaspora, whose financial muscle has become quite impressive, strives hard to get its social and political agenda to India. Its involvement has grown beyond doing some philanthropic activities in and around their villages of origin.<br /><br />-------------------<br /><br />The goal of rescuing their ‘Hindu’ nation from ‘minority-appeasing’ secular forces, the diaspora is no longer isolated from what is happening in India in the current era of increased global connectivity and communication. Through personal connections, travel and the use of information technology, the Hindu diaspora is actively engaged in India’s political processes.<br /><br /><br />---------------<br /><br />In recent years, they lobbied hard to give an image makeover to Narendra Modi’s reputation after the Gujarat riot of 2002, in which 2000 Muslims were killed under his watch, and he was denied a visa to travel to the United States and the E.U. – almost till his election as Prime Minister. Modi after coming to power has continued to nurture his diaspora constituency. In each and every foreign visit, one pressing engagement is to hold meetings addressing the diaspora. He has initiated the process that Indians living abroad will be able to vote in Indian elections by proxy.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-55464252561789206592018-01-19T17:47:04.827-08:002018-01-19T17:47:04.827-08:00#Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu: “We (#Israel) are n...#Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu: “We (#Israel) are not enemies of #Pakistan and Pakistan should not be our enemy either.” #NetanyahuInIndia #India https://tribune.com.pk/story/1612753/1-pakistan-not-behave-like-enemy-towards-israel-israeli-pm-netanyahu/<br /><br />Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed suggestions that his country’s partnership with India is a threat to Pakistan, saying, “We (Israel) are not enemies of Pakistan and Pakistan should not be our enemy either.”<br /><br />Contrary to some media reports, the Israeli PM in an interview with Times Now categorically stated that Israel is not an enemy of Pakistan.<br /><br />Netanyahu made the response while responding to a question regarding Pakistan issuing “a very bellicose statement” on the Israeli premier’s visit to India.<br /><br /><br />To a question on whether Israel would endorse India if it undertakes a ‘surgical strike’ against Pakistan, Netanyahu said, “We have some understanding,” before changing the subject.<br /><br />Netanyahu also clarified that Israel’s partnership with India is directed to four things and not to some specific country. “Its directed to achieve greater prosperity and greater security for our people, better health, cleaner air, clean water, more productive crops, more milk per cow,” he said.<br /><br />Throughout, the interview the Israeli PM emphasised that his visit to India had an economic focus rather than a military one. He skirted around a question on whether Israel would support India if it launched an attack on Pakistan.<br /><br />He also claimed, “Israel is no longer viewed by most Arab countries as an enemy, but as an indispensable ally in their battle against radicalism.”Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-73729500551622566692017-10-04T10:22:38.099-07:002017-10-04T10:22:38.099-07:00THE UAE SECRETLY PICKED UP THE TAB FOR THE EGYPTIA...THE UAE SECRETLY PICKED UP THE TAB FOR THE EGYPTIAN DICTATORSHIP’S D.C. LOBBYING<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/10/04/egypt-lobbying-uae-otaiba-trump-sisi/<br /><br /><br />WHEN EGYPT WENT to work to establish the credibility of its repressive government in Washington, it had help from the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba.<br /><br />Emails obtained by The Intercept show that Otaiba and the UAE essentially picked up the tab for Egypt’s lobbyists in Washington, D.C.<br /><br />Egypt in 2013 enlisted the Glover Park Group, a top D.C. public relations and lobbying firm founded by former Clinton White House and Democratic Party officials, to be one of its public faces in the U.S. capital.<br /><br />In a September 2015 memo to Otaiba, GPG described its work for Egypt as designed to influence both the U.S. government and the “echo chamber” of Washington think tanks and news media in order to influence American policy. The email exchanges provided to The Intercept were discovered in a cache of correspondence pilfered from Otaiba’s Hotmail account, which he used regularly for official business.<br /><br />--------<br /><br />THE EMAILS OBTAINED by The Intercept also show Otaiba lecturing journalists and think tank staffers on the benefits of repressive leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rule, acting as a sort of de facto second ambassador for the country.<br /><br />Sisi, as chief general of the Egyptian army, led a 2013 coup against then-President Mohamed Morsi. The military man was elected president with 97 percent of the vote in a 2014 election that was largely decried as undemocratic. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were chief backers of the military takeover, providing billions of dollars in support to Egypt.<br /><br />When Politico’s Michael Crowley penned a piece titled “Trump to welcome Egypt’s dictator” in April 2017 with quotes from human rights experts about Sisi’s brutal crackdown, Otaiba wrote him an email accusing him of having “something against Sisi,” despite being “one of the smartest and most thoughtful journalists in the business.”<br /><br />He specifically objected to Crowley’s citation of Tom Malinowski, a former Obama administration diplomat who also served as Human Rights Watch’s Washington director from 2001 to 2013. (Human Rights Watch has issued several damning reports about Egypt in recent years, including one that called for an investigation into Sisi’s role in the 2013 mass killings of more than 1,000 protesters in what “probably amounts to crimes against humanity.” Sisi was Egypt’s minister of defense at the time of the killings.)<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-66994004101587363302017-10-03T07:28:33.450-07:002017-10-03T07:28:33.450-07:00THE OCTOPUS
How a US arms lobby group played both ...THE OCTOPUS<br />How a US arms lobby group played both India and Pakistan on the F-16 aircraft<br /><br />by Ex Sen Larry Pressler<br /><br />https://qz.com/1092790/how-a-us-lobby-group-played-both-india-and-pakistan-on-the-f-16-aircraft/<br /><br />The manufacturer of the F-16—the massive defence corporation Lockheed Martin—with $47 billion in annual revenue in 2016, also has a labyrinthine lobbying operation. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets database, the company has been spending more than $10 million on it annually since 2006. In addition to their in-house lobbyists, they have amassed an army of outside companies to assist them with their lobbying efforts: law firms, public relations agencies, consultants.<br />By far the largest amount of Lockheed Martin’s lobbying budget is paid out to the Podesta Group, the powerful firm headed by the super-lobbyist, Tony Podesta. Lockheed Martin paid the group $550,000 in the years 2014, 2015, and 2016. Most of the issues the Podesta Group advocated for on behalf of Lockheed Martin were defence and aerospace issues. It is highly likely that they assisted in the overall effort to push through the sale of F-16s to Pakistan!<br />In February 2016, the state department and the department of defense announced that they were approving a sale of eight more F-16s to Pakistan, clearly a victory for Lockheed Martin. Under the terms of this new deal, however, the sale of these additional F-16s was to be subsidised by the US government. In a move to make these deals even sweeter, the government sometimes uses what is called Foreign Military Funds (FMFs). FMF is a bucket of taxpayer money that is used to subsidise sales of military equipment to foreign countries.<br />…<br />The Indian government immediately and publicly protested both the sale and the subsidy, causing quite a hiccup for the US government. India’s leaders recognised the jets for what they were: a nuclear-capable force projection that could be used against them. The Indian foreign secretary, S Jaishankar, immediately summoned Richard Verma, the US ambassador to New Delhi, to express his displeasure. And then the Pakistani government publicly feigned surprise over the Indians’ complaints.<br />The Indian embassy in Washington summarily deployed their army of lobbyists to block the deal. So, who has been lobbying on their behalf since 2010? Once again, the Podesta Group.<br />According to their FARA filings, the Podesta Group was paid $700,000 by the government of India for work they performed in 2016. Conventional wisdom says that a firm that is representing India cannot very well represent Pakistan at the same time. But in the world of the Octopus, the same firm represents competing interests and it is all legal.<br />…<br />The power and pressure of the Indian embassy’s lobbying firm produced results. A week after the state department’s announcement of the planned subsidised F-16 sale to Pakistan, Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul introduced a joint resolution to halt the sale.<br />…<br />Senator Paul’s resolution was debated on the floor of the senate and a vote was called, but the resolution was scuttled in what is called a “tabling motion.” In a 71 to 24 vote, the Senate voted to “table” the resolution, which effectively killed the effort. Senator Paul received some bipartisan support for this resolution, but not enough.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-54259694522655784112017-07-30T07:54:34.672-07:002017-07-30T07:54:34.672-07:00#India Cuts Lobbying Expenses In #Washington. #Mod...#India Cuts Lobbying Expenses In #Washington. #Modi #Trump #Congress #Senate #State #Trade http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-cuts-lobbying-expenses-in-us-1731087 … via @ndtv<br /><br />India has cut expenses toward lobbying in the US with a total payment of $120,000 to its registered lobbyist firm in the second quarter of 2017 - the first cut in nearly seven years. The disclosure has been made by BGR Government Affairs, which lobbied on behalf of India on issues relating to "bilateral US-India relations". According to the latest quarterly disclosure report filed with the US Senate, BGR has disclosed a total income of $120,000 from India toward "all lobbying related income from the client".<br /><br />All lobbyist firms need to get registered in the US for undertaking any lobbying activities and file quarterly disclosures including about the payments received, specific issues for lobbying and the agencies approached by it.<br /><br />During the second quarter of 2017 ended June 30, BGR lobbied on behalf of the Indian government at the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the Department Commerce, the Department of State and the US Trade Representative.<br /><br />Prior to the latest quarter, BGR's quarterly lobbying income from the Indian government stood unchanged at $180,000 since the fourth quarter of 2010. Before that, the Indian government had paid BGR $60,000 in the third quarter of 2010 and less than $5,000 in the second quarter of that year, according to the disclosure reports filed over the years.<br /><br />The latest disclosure report did not cite any reason for the decline in the quarterly payment to $120,000. The highest quarterly amount so far has been recorded in the fourth quarter of 2009 when BGR was paid $200,000, as per an analysis of all disclosure reports filed by it.<br /><br />While the "specific lobbying issue" disclosed by BGR for Indian government has been "bilateral US-India relations" for many quarters now, the firm also used to lobby "issues related to the civil nuclear agreement" between the US and India till 2009.<br /><br />BGR began lobbying in the US on behalf of the Indian government in late 2005. In its registration disclosure filed in October 2005, BGR had said it has been mandated to "provide guidance and counsel with regard to issues impacting bilateral relations between the United States and the Republic of India".<br /><br />Subsequently, in its year-end disclosure report for 2005, when BGR was paid a total of $240,000, the lobbyist disclosed that it "provided guidance and counsel with regard to issues impacting bilateral relations between the US and the Republic of India, including a potential civil nuclear agreement".<br /><br />Issues on bilateral relationship and civil nuclear agreement continued to be listed as "specific lobbying issues" in the disclosure reports for the years 2006-2009, after which the disclosed lobbying area has been limited to 'bilateral US-India relationship'.<br /><br />Since 2005-end when BGR began lobbying in the US on behalf of the Indian government, it has been paid a total of $8 million (approximately Rs. 50 crore at the current exchange rate).<br /> Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-61973408887896871632015-06-12T21:23:31.693-07:002015-06-12T21:23:31.693-07:00BBC News - #Indian and #Pakistani #Americans are b...BBC News - #Indian and #Pakistani #Americans are big US election donors http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33116280 …<br /><br />For presidential hopefuls in the United States, it's still early days in the race for the White House, but the campaign finance machines are all geared up for the show.<br />Among the big donors and fundraisers are some from the Indian and Pakistani American community. They do not yet have the numbers to wield significant influence as voters in US politics, but they are a highly sought after lot when it comes to campaign cash.<br /><br /><br />Many of them figure in the elite list of political donors in both congressional and presidential campaigns.<br />So why do they fund political campaigns, what's in it for them?<br />BBC's Brajesh Upadhyay reports. Edited by Maxine Collins.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-4517411132599646722012-06-14T16:52:11.491-07:002012-06-14T16:52:11.491-07:00Here's an Indian Express story on how much Ind...Here's an <a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-likes-israel-the-most-after-us-and-uk-embassy/962009/" rel="nofollow">Indian Express</a> story on how much Indians "like" Israel on Facebook:<br /><br /><i>Israel today said it's official India Facebook page has the most 'Likes' after that of the US and the United Kindgom.<br /><br />The ISRAEL in INDIA Facebook page, launched by the Israelian Embassy in August, 2010, has received almost 20,000 'likes', a figure surpassed only by the pages of the US and the UK.<br /><br />Two decades after India and Israel established full diplomatic relations, ties between the two nations are extending far beyond traditional diplomacy, the Embassy said in a statement.<br /><br />Less than two years after the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi launched its activity on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other virtual platforms, Israel managed to gain “exceptional popularity” in the Indian social media arena, it said.<br /><br />The Embassy also launched a new website recently, which provides frequent updates on Israeli activities in India as well as a fresh and young look at Israel's society, history, culture and economy. The Embassy also operates specialised websites in Hindi and Urdu.<br /><br />“These results are impressive”, said Alon Ushpiz, Israel's Ambassador to India.<br /><br />“They mirror the warmth and friendship that we Israelis feel across India and they are yet another indication of the immense potential that lies in our relationship”, he added.</i><br /><br />http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-likes-israel-the-most-after-us-and-uk-embassy/962009/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-4459154543837312102011-03-31T08:42:34.432-07:002011-03-31T08:42:34.432-07:00Here are some excerpts from an Op Ed in The Hindu ...Here are some excerpts from an Op Ed in The Hindu on Wikileaks cables showing growing US and Israeli influence in New Delhi:<br /><br />The publication and analysis of the US embassy cables accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks is ongoing, but what has been made available so far reveals a disturbing picture. The US has acquired an influential position in various spheres - strategic affairs, foreign policy and economic policies. The US has access to the bureaucracy, military, security and intelligence systems and has successfully penetrated them at various levels. The cables cover a period mainly from 2005 to 2009, the very period when the UPA government went ahead to forge the strategic alliance with the US.<br />--------<br />The volte face by the Manmohan Singh government in voting against Iran in the IAEA in September 2005 was one such crucial event. The cables illustrate how the US government exercised maximum pressure to achieve this turn around. The Indian government was told that unless India takes a firm stand against Iran, the US Congress would not pass the legislation to approve the nuclear deal.<br />------------<br />Other cables reveal how the United States succeeded in getting India to coordinate policy towards other countries in South Asia like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The close cooperation with Israel under US aegis is also spelt out.<br /><br />The success achieved in getting India's foreign policy to be "congruent" to US policy is smugly stated in an embassy cable that Indian officials are ‘loathe to admit publicly that India and the US have begun coordinating foreign policies'.<br />----------<br />One of the cables from the US ambassador to the American defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld spells out the agenda which the Americans hope to accomplish during the visit. The Defence Framework Agreement was the first of this type to be signed by India with any country. It envisages a whole gamut of cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries. It is evident from the cables that the US government and the Pentagon had been negotiating and planning for such an agreement from the time of the NDA government.<br />------------<br />The cables show the growing coordination of the security establishments of the two countries reaching a high level of cooperation after the Mumbai terrorist attack. The then National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan was seen by the Americans as eager to establish a high degree of security cooperation involving agencies such as the FBI and the CIA.<br /><br />The cables also provide a glimpse of how the Americans are able to penetrate the intelligence and security apparatus. Among the forty cables which were first published by the British paper, The Guardian, there are two instances of improper contacts. In the first case a member of the National Security Advisory Board meets an American embassy official and offers to provide information about Iranian contacts in India and requests for his visit to the United States to be arranged in return. In another case the US embassy reports that it is able to get access to terrorism related information directly from a police official serving in the Delhi Police, rather than going through official channels.<br />---------------<br />The collaboration between the intelligence and security agencies of the two countries had already resulted in American penetration. Two cases of espionage had come up. During the NDA government, a RAW officer, Rabinder Singh was recruited by the CIA. When his links were uncovered, he was helped by the CIA to flee to the United States. During the UPA government a systems analyst in the National Security Council secretariat was found to have been recruited by the CIA, the contact having been established through the US-India Cyber Security Forum.<br /><br />http://www.thehindu.com/news/resources/article1568273.eceRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23113823900912073952011-02-16T17:06:43.671-08:002011-02-16T17:06:43.671-08:00Here are some excerpts from an Op Ed piece "T...Here are some excerpts from an <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02162011.html" rel="nofollow">Op Ed piece</a> "The US as Israel's Enabler in the Middle East" by KATHLEEN CHRISTISON:<br /><br /><i> Before the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the United States never considered that Egypt was quite the strategic asset that it became when it surrendered its military capability in the interests of Israel. The same can be said about the United States’ relations with several other Arab states. Its involvement in Lebanon over the years -- including its effort to remove Syrian forces from Lebanon -- <br />---<br />The recent Wikileaks releases of State Department cables and particularly al-Jazeera’s release of a raft of Palestinian documents dealing with negotiations over the last decade also demonstrate with striking clarity how hard the United States works, and has always worked, to help Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process. U.S. support for Israel has never been a secret, becoming less and less so in recent years, but the leaked documents provide the most dramatic picture yet of the United States’ total disdain for all Palestinian negotiating demands and its complete helplessness in the face of Israeli refusal to make concessions. It is striking to note from these papers that the U.S. role as “Israel’s lawyer” -- a description coined by Aaron David Miller after his involvement in negotiations during the Clinton era -- is the same whether the administration is Bill Clinton’s or George W. Bush’s or Barack Obama’s. Israel’s interests and demands always prevail.<br /><br />Beyond the Arab world, U.S. policy on Iran is dictated more or less totally by Israel. The pressure to attack Iran -- either a U.S. attack or U.S. support for an Israeli attack -- which has been brought to bear for most of the eight years since the start of the war on Iraq, ...<br />---<br />It has been clear to most analysts for years, even decades, that the United States favors Israel, but this reality has never been revealed so explicitly until recent events laid the relationship bare, and laid bare the fact that Israel is at the center of virtually every move the United States makes in the region. There has long been a taboo on talking about these realities, a taboo that has tied the tongues of people like my interlocutor. People do not mention Israel because they might be called anti-Semitic, they might be attacked as “singling out” Israel for criticism; the media fail to discuss Israel and what it does around the Middle East and, most directly, to the Palestinians who live under its rule because this might provoke angry letters to the editor and cancelled subscriptions by Israel supporters. Congressmen will not endanger campaign funds by talking honestly about Israel. And so Israel is taken off everyone’s radar screen. Progressives may “mention Israel in passing,” as my friend told me, but they do no more. Ultimately, because no one talks about it, everyone stops even thinking about Israel as the prime mover behind so many U.S. policies and actions in the Middle East.<br /></i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-90296934336291393792010-07-30T18:42:56.998-07:002010-07-30T18:42:56.998-07:00Here's an excerpt from a piece "Soldiers ...Here's an excerpt from a <a href="http://students.brown.edu/Awaaz/assets/issues/fall2006.pdf" rel="nofollow">piece</a> "Soldiers Tripping on Shanti" by UC Davis professor Sunaina Maira: <br /><br /><i> We left Israel to visit India after the wedding, and what did we see? Many things that were hopeful, including street protests against corruption and for women's education, and also some things that gave us pause—such as Israeli tourists in search of "shanti." Beginning about ten years ago, there has been a flood of young Israelis visiting India, usually after they finish their reserve duty in the Israeli military, flocking to Goa to do drugs or to Rajasthan to see the Pushkar fair. Some are in search of an Orientalized mystical culture and peaceful way of life that is labeled "shanti" culture in Israel—as if trekking in the Himalayas could absolve former soldiers from shooting children in Gaza or demolishing homes in the West Bank and Lebanon.<br /><br />The sight of former Israeli soldiers flocking to India is strange for someone who grew up during the time when India did not have official relations with Israel, like other nations who supported the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. India's solidarity with the Palestinian movement began even before 1948, for Indian leaders opposed the 1917 Balfour Declaration to establish a Jewish state on Palestinian land. In fact, in 1946, Gandhi wrote that Jewish settlers "have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism ... Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?" Gandhi was referring to Zionist terrorist organizations, such as the Irgun and Stern gangs. It is ironic that today, a romanticized notion of Gandhian non-violent resistance is used as a weapon to condemn Palestinian resistance.<br /><br />India was host to many PLO members and Palestinian students in exile who came to study in colleges all over India. India was in fact the first non-Arab nation to recognize the PLO in the United Nations, expressing solidarity with other anti-colonialist struggles during the Non-Aligned Movement era, as documented by Vijay Prashad in Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism Under U.S. Hegemony. Even though India unofficially recognized Israel in this period by allowing an Israeli consulate in Bombay, Nehru's closeness to Arab nationalist leader Abdul Gamel Nasser led the Congress to distance itself from Israel. In fact, India voted to censure Zionism as Racism in the UN in 1975. <br /><br />The landscape has changed since the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in India in 1988 and established official relationships between India and Israel, deepening the military and economic ties that were already in place. India now buys half of its arms from Israel, making it Israel's biggest customer. It is thus funding the Israeli occupation, because the Israeli economy rests on its defense industry, its main export, as well as the inflow of US tax dollars. The military agreements, collaboration on nuclear and missile defense, and sharing of intelligence has continued even with the new United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. India and Israel have found a shared enemy to target in their respective "anti-terrorism" operations, conflating Kashmir and Pakistan with Palestine, and also common agreement on a framework that has gained global currency with Bush's "war on terrorism," resulting in the new "India-Israel-US axis."<br /></i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-4445773543788290082010-06-16T08:56:51.737-07:002010-06-16T08:56:51.737-07:00Mark Glenn Piece Contd:
For supressing the inform...Mark Glenn <a href="http://www.rense.com/general69/letme.htm" rel="nofollow">Piece</a> Contd:<br /><br /><i>For supressing the information from the American people of your involvement in the September 11 attacks and sending us in the wrong direction in search of answers, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using one of your agents in the US Army Weapons Lab, Lt Colonel Philip Zack to steal anthrax and distribute it into our mail system, terrorizing US citizens and killing several in order to blame the Arabs, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using your agents in the US Government, namely, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, and the rest into initiating this war in the Middle East so that you could bring to heel all the enemies you have made during the last 50 years, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using your agents in the media to lie to us on a minute by minute basis about the war, how "just" this cause is, and what the real reasons behind it are, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using your agents in the Christian Evangelical community, such as Falwell, Graham, Swaggert, and the rest who praise you as God's chosen people and further keep Americans in the dark about who you really are, what you have done, and what you are truly about, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For bringing idiots like Limbaugh, Liddy, Hannity, Beck, and Savage to the forefront as paid liars that will support you and further lead Americans astray, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For making America your attack dog, and for sending her sons and daughters to fight and die in all your future wars, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using your influence in the media to hide the real statistics about the war, the dead and wounded on both sides, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using us in such a way that not only further inflames the Arab world against us, but as well has succeeded in our alienating ourselves against those nations with whom we have been friendly for over a century, we bless thee.<br /> <br />And finally, for using your influence in our media and academia to flood our minds with pornography and lies, as well as inculcating in us a hatred for our history, religion, and culture, for dividing our nation between races and sexes, and for releasing into our society all of your plagues and filth that have left us a rotted out corpse of a once great nation, oh Israel, our friend,we bless thee.<br /> <br />Note:<br /> <br />For further information regarding the above cited events, read either books written by ex- Israeli Intelligence agent Victor Ostrovsky entitled "By Way of Deception" and "The Other Side of Deception".</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-70067032799976508132010-06-16T08:46:37.317-07:002010-06-16T08:46:37.317-07:00Here's a revealing piece by Mark Glenn, an Ame...Here's a revealing <a href="http://www.rense.com/general69/letme.htm" rel="nofollow">piece</a> by Mark Glenn, an American and former high school teacher turned writer and commentator: <br /><br /><i>Today, while driving through town, I wound up behind a minivan that had a big sticker on the back. The sticker had an Israeli flag in the middle of it, and under it the quotation from the book of Genesis that reads "I will bless those who bless thee."<br /> <br />I would like to take this time to list my own reasons for thanking and blessing Israel, our lone ally in the Middle East, for everything she has done for us, since I am quite sure most Americans are unaware of just what kind of friend she has been to us.<br /> <br />For extorting from me and my fellow Americans $16,000,000,000 (billion) a year for the last 4 decades, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For taking our most sophisticated weapons technology and stealing it for yourself without paying the American patent holders, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For taking that high-tech military technology and selling it to our enemies, such as the Russians and Chinese, thus further endangering us, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using that weaponry in a sustained attack against a United States ship, the USS Liberty, in an attempt to sink her, thus preventing US servicemen from revealing to the rest of the world information concerning the war crimes they witnessed you commit against Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Desert during the Six Day War, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For killing 35 and wounding 170 American sailors aboard the USS Liberty, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For bribing the United States government into covering it up, preventing any justice from being done for the benefit of the families of the lost sailors - as well as the American People, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For sending your agents into Egypt and blowing up American buildings for the purpose of blaming the Arabs in an event known as the Lavon Affair, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For sending your agents into Libya during the Reagan administration, and broadcasting radio messages in Arabic that were designed to sound like "terrorist cell planning" so that the US would initiate military strikes against Khadafi, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For withholding information from us concerning the planned attacks against the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, attacks you knew about through your moles in the Islamic world and about which you deliberately refused to warn us in order to further your interests against the Arabs, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For employing Jonathon Pollard, an American serviceman paid to spy for Israel in order to steal even more of our National Security secrets for your parasitic purposes, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For blackmailing President Clinton through one of your intelligence agents, Monica Lewinsky, in order to prevent a coherent peace program from being pushed forward between yourself and the Palestinian people that you have brutalized and murdered for the last 50 years, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For breaking every agreement you have made with your Arab neighbors, stealing their land, displacing, murdering, and treating them like the animals you see them as, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using your agents within the first Bush administration to involve us in the first Gulf War, causing the deaths of American men and women, and exposing our servicemen to whatever bioweapons were/are responsible that has led to Gulf War Syndrome, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For your role in the September 11 attacks in this country, and for blackmailing and bribing the US government into deporting back to Israel the 100 or more intelligence agents that were arrested after the attacks, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For supressing the information from the American people of your involvement in the September 11 attacks and sending us in the wrong direction in search of answers, we bless thee.<br /> <br />For using one of your agents in the US Army Weapons Lab, Lt Colonel Philip Zack to steal anthrax and distribute it into our mail system, terrorizing US citizens and killing several in order to blame the Arabs, we bless thee.</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-36146507737159402722010-05-23T18:41:09.360-07:002010-05-23T18:41:09.360-07:00Diplomat Bharakumar Op Ed on Iran-India contd:
R...Diplomat Bharakumar Op Ed on Iran-India contd: <br /><br /><i>Russia and China, therefore, have complementary interests in shepherding Iranian energy exports to the Asian market. How is India placed in the energy equations? On balance, India in no way benefits out of the US-Iran standoff and, in fact, has a great deal to lose as regional tensions prevail in a region which forms its extended neighborhood. The Iran nuclear issue potentially can complicate the US-India strategic partnership as New Delhi will be firmly opposed to any use of force in the resolution of the problem.<br />Equally, the bottom line is that Iran is a major source of energy supplies for the expanding Indian economy. In geopolitical terms, a leap of faith uncluttered by the debris in the India-Pakistan relationship will dictate that the Iran gas pipeline project offers a rare opportunity for New Delhi to make its western neighbor a stakeholder in regional cooperation. Even at the height of the Cold War with nuclear armies preparing for Armageddon, pipelines criss-crossed the Iron Curtain. Alas, the Indian strategic community has a closed mind, as things stand, when it comes to developing a matrix of regional cooperation that even remotely includes Pakistan.<br /><br />India's diplomatic ingenuity lies in working on the US thinking to persuade it to become a partner in the Iran pipeline project. The prospect offers a "win-win" situation. Iran doesn't hide its panache for Big Oil. The US has stakes in India-Pakistan normalization. India and Pakistan's energy markets offer massive business for American oil companies. The US involvement acts as a guarantee for the pipeline. Least of all, Washington too wishes to make Tehran a stakeholder in regional stability.<br /><br />New Delhi should closely study Turkey's motivations on the Iran nuclear issue. Turkey has interests almost similar to India's and its supple diplomacy enables it to astutely position itself for the day when the US-Iran standoff dissipates. Turkey estimates that Iran is a neighbor (although they have had a troubled relationship) while the US is a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally and any midwifery in the inevitable US-Iran rapprochement becomes a strategic asset for Ankara's growing stature as a regional power.<br /><br />Indian diplomacy has lately made some interesting moves toward Iran, beginning with Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao's visit to Tehran in February. The desire to craft a fresh approach is also evident in External Affairs Minister S M Krishna's consultations this week in Tehran. The path is strewn with thorns, as the Iranians harbor a deep sense of hurt about India's stance at the IAEA votes. Therefore, as the US's tug-of-war with Iran intensifies, New Delhi faces the challenge of not treading on Tehran's sensitivities all over again.<br /><br />On the whole, Indian policy is principled, especially its line that the IAEA ought to be in the driving seat rather than a cabal of states with dubious intentions. But New Delhi is lurking in the shadows in a blissful state of masterly inactivity.<br /><br />India should openly join hands with Turkey and Brazil in opposing the need for a continued push for UN sanctions against Iran. No doubt, the diplomatic initiative by Turkey and Brazil creates an altogether new situation and Indian diplomacy should grasp its importance and seize its potentials. </i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-6448547454033955292010-05-23T18:20:32.562-07:002010-05-23T18:20:32.562-07:00Here's an excerpt from an Op Ed by ex Indian d...Here's an excerpt from an <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE22Df02.html" rel="nofollow">Op Ed</a> by ex Indian diplomat Bhadrakumar:<br /><br /><i>Clearly, relations with the US are of the highest priority for India, as they are for Russia or China. But the similarity ends there. For the foreseeable future, despite the heart-warming prognosis by the world community hailing India as a potentially emerging global player, the hard reality is that such a prospect remains distant in the scheme of things. When it comes to issues such as the situation around Iran, India lacks the wherewithal of Russia or China.<br />---<br />On the other hand, India is almost similarly placed vis-a-vis the US as Brazil or Turkey are. The fact that these two countries, which are close partners of the US, have not drawn Washington's ire shouldn't go unnoticed. New Delhi's apprehensions that any independent line on the Iran nuclear issue might upset the rhythm of US-India relations seems, in introspect, to have been entirely unwarranted. Countries that have taken an independent line on the Iran nuclear issue during crucial IAEA votes - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Egypt - have not exactly come to grief. On the contrary, India's traditional ties with Iran grievously suffered when it began blindly toeing the American line.<br /><br />Worse still, Tehran harbors a suspicion that New Delhi might have used its ''Iran card'' to ingratiate itself with the George W Bush administration. The signs are that Tehran has made a cool analysis about damage control and has decided to more or less relegate its ties with New Delhi to a place on the backburner, even while going through the occasional motions of friendship and exchange of views that the two neighbors cannot do without.<br /><br />New Delhi needs to take stock that Obama is an extraordinarily gifted politician endowed with intellectuality and it is conceivable he may come up with new thinking and a new approach to the problem. Monday's swap deal underscored indisputably that US policy on Iran is in a cul-de-sac. A reversal becomes inevitable. To be sure, Obama has taken note that Turkey and Brazil highlighted the existence of a whole world beyond the secretive, cloistered framework of the "Iran Six".<br /><br />New Delhi has of late been attempting to follow in the footsteps of Russian and Chinese policies. Here too, a rethink is in order. India needs to factor in gains accruing to Russia and China from a continuing US-Iran standoff. The Western embargo against Tehran is keeping Iranian energy exports out of the European energy market that might otherwise have competed with Russian supplies. Energy exports constitute the single-biggest trump card of Russian foreign policy to modulate Western policies toward Moscow.<br /><br />As for China, it is indeed having quite a field day as an exporter of goods and services to Iran as well as for advancing plans to evacuate Iranian gas and oil through pipelines across Central Asia that are nearing completion. In sum, Beijing has done splendidly well.<br /><br />--------<br />India's diplomatic ingenuity lies in working on the US thinking to persuade it to become a partner in the Iran pipeline project. The prospect offers a "win-win" situation. Iran doesn't hide its panache for Big Oil. The US has stakes in India-Pakistan normalization. India and Pakistan's energy markets offer massive business for American oil companies. The US involvement acts as a guarantee for the pipeline. Least of all, Washington too wishes to make Tehran a stakeholder in regional stability. </i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-54582298779678194372009-10-31T10:20:20.207-07:002009-10-31T10:20:20.207-07:00Here is a BBC report providing a glimpse of India ...Here is a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8331612.stm" rel="nofollow">BBC report</a> providing a glimpse of India lobby's work in Washington:<br /><br /><i>I have come to a downtown Indian restaurant in Washington DC to try to gauge the balance of forces in a growing battle for influence on Capitol Hill.<br /><br />Across the table is Sanjay Puri, the chairman of US Inpac - the US India Political Action Committee.<br /><br />Sanjay Puri says that Inpac's goal is to give a political voice to some 2.7m Indian-Americans.<br /><br />"This is not about representing India's interests," he insisted.<br /><br />"We look at things from an American perspective.<br /><br />"It is in America's interests," he went on, "to have strong trade ties with India.<br /><br />"It is important for us to have a strategic relationship with India, which happens to be the democracy in a region where we need a stable partner."<br /><br />Across town, in a small office building not far from the Senate, I visited Taha Gaya, the executive director of Pal-C - the Pakistani American Leadership Centre.<br /><br />'Not fighting'<br /><br />Taha is a law graduate and has worked as a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill.<br /><br />Describing himself as a second-generation Pakistani-American, he seeks to lobby on behalf of his community and insists that he is not fighting the Indian-American lobby.<br /><br />"There is no doubt that India is the growing economic power in the region," he told me - but he said that there was also "no reason why Pakistan should not benefit from the economic growth of its neighbour next door".<br /><br />Taha Gaya explained that on some issues the two lobbies had sometimes worked together. <br /><br />But the Mumbai attacks last year changed all that.<br /><br />"When Mumbai happened," he explained, "we saw a resurgence of participation from the older generation of Indian-Americans - those who had grown up in India" - who, he claimed, reverted to what he described as "the old more negative dynamic".<br /><br />Inevitably then the two lobbies seem destined to be on different sides of the barricades.<br /><br />The recent US foreign aid bill for Pakistan is a good example. Pro-India groups lobbied hard for all sorts of conditions to be inserted into the bill.<br /><br />Sanjay Puri was part of this campaign. This was not about supporting India's interests, he insists, and neither was it motivated by hostility towards Pakistan.<br /><br />"Our activities are not aimed against the people of Pakistan or against the State of Pakistan," he told me.<br /><br />"It is about accountability and transparency. We are very active in making sure that when US taxpayers' money is being spent, especially in these difficult economic times, there has to be a level of transparency." </i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-53963543636974885832009-10-31T10:10:54.200-07:002009-10-31T10:10:54.200-07:00Here is a BBC report providing a glimpse of India ...Here is a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8331612.stm" rel="nofollow">BBC report</a> providing a glimpse of India lobby's work in Washington: <br /><br /><i>The recent US foreign aid bill for Pakistan is a good example. Pro-India groups lobbied hard for all sorts of conditions to be inserted into the bill.<br /><br />Sanjay Puri was part of this campaign. This was not about supporting India's interests, he insists, and neither was it motivated by hostility towards Pakistan.<br /><br />"Our activities are not aimed against the people of Pakistan or against the State of Pakistan," he told me.<br /><br />"It is about accountability and transparency. We are very active in making sure that when US taxpayers' money is being spent, especially in these difficult economic times, there has to be a level of transparency." <br /><br />The Indian-American community, he told me, "is supportive of aid that relates to democracy in Pakistan, education, reforms progress on women's rights and so on".<br /><br />"But if Pakistan says that it needs F16 jets to hunt down terrorists," he adds, "I don't think the average American is going to buy that."<br /><br />For a referee in this struggle, I turned to Professor Walter Andersen, director of the South Asia programme at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.<br /><br />A former diplomat, he has watched the development of these US-based lobbying groups with great interest.<br /><br />The galvanising event he told me, was the struggle over the US-India nuclear deal which came to a head in 2008.<br /><br />The US wanted to help India with civil nuclear technology but was prevented from doing so by legislation banning the export of fuel or know-how to any country that had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So the Bush administration sought to make an exception for India.<br /><br />"The Bush team very smartly contacted the India lobby," Professor Andersen told me, "and worked very closely with it."<br /><br />The US Chamber of Commerce and its India section also got involved because of the prospect of business. <br /><br />"So you had American business interests, the administration and the Indian-American lobby all very actively pushing for this. There was a lot of opposition. In some ways it went down to the wire," he noted, "but their persistent effort paid off."</i><br /><br />http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8331612.stmRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-30207961023018810292009-02-22T09:34:00.000-08:002009-02-22T09:34:00.000-08:00@anon 7:13 pm, India has graduated into a trading ...@anon 7:13 pm, India has graduated into a trading partner and pakistan still continuous as receipient of aid.<BR/><BR/>Yes as always at expense of the lower caste and the blood of all the 80% of Indias poor populations, BRAVO, hey a ho l s, this is a pakistani blog, what do you expect, put pakistan down, why? look who is negotiating with pakistan inspite of all the dirty assumptions, face the reality, think of peace.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-74562963989498209312009-02-21T19:13:00.000-08:002009-02-21T19:13:00.000-08:00Probably pakistan might require an aid of 1.5 bill...Probably pakistan might require an aid of 1.5 billion usd per annum for the next ten years. India does not require. Rather america require india to buy nuclear reactor for their economy engine to run. <BR/><BR/>India has graduated into a trading partner and pakistan still continuous as receipient of aid.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-51446910544980871032009-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:002009-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:00RiazWhy are you jumping at india. Pakistan is bre...Riaz<BR/><BR/>Why are you jumping at india. Pakistan is breaking [ your heart knows it but your false pride does not allow to accept it ] due to its own internal difference. Nothing to do with india or any other country.<BR/><BR/>Best of luck of your efforts to destabilize other countries around including india but i think it is not that easy. <BR/><BR/>Proabably you could focus your efforts in bring togather the diverse force if possible, rather than jumping it on india.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-3881445721445809402009-02-17T03:56:00.000-08:002009-02-17T03:56:00.000-08:00hey bullhit without the 's' b/4 'h', did u spend e...hey bullhit without the 's' b/4 'h', did u spend enough time on making up this screen name.But I still agree with your concept of real estate being the most valuable asset of any nation and the part about corruption amongst Kashmiris leaders, its believable.But do you know Pakistan almost had the entire kashmir during Kargil war, read about that highly sophisticated covert operation, thanks to brillaince of Mushharuf/china and ofcourse our brave soldiers, but a super power came in between and it was an instantaneous dead end, also read about how badly equipped Indian army or I would say ww 2 siphaees, inadequate equipment for that terrain and still is till current day surprisingly.So dont dwell firmly on this concept BS Iam sorry BULLIT.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-64168270214834831352009-02-16T13:14:00.000-08:002009-02-16T13:14:00.000-08:00Face it guys... Azadi for Kashmir is a non-starter...Face it guys... Azadi for Kashmir is a non-starter... Both the Abdullah's and the Gilani's of the world are very corrupt.... The Indian government throws millions in Kashmir every year... These so-called leaders, who are the voice of Kashmiris know the game, keep the Azadi pot in simmer, never let it boil over. India is never gonna cede an inch of land in Kashmir. If the Israel palestine conflict has taught us anything, real-estate however battled scarred, is the most valuable asset of any nation. I envision a long term plan in which many of the Kashmiri pandits can be resettled back in Kashmir, change the demographics to majority Hindu, thereby nullyfing any plebiscite.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com