At the beginning of 2013, even the most pessimistic analysts in New Delhi and Washington would not have predicted the depth to which the US-India relations have sunk now. The sorry state of ties at the moment reminds one of 1998, when the United States imposed sanctions against India, after New Delhi conducted nuclear tests defying the international nuclear regime. Unlike the nuclear test, which was a weighty policy decision made after a very careful consideration, the current impasse, which … [Read more...]

The Indian information technology industry, steadfastly opposed to an immigration reform bill passed by the US Senate this past June, maybe finally getting its wish. It appears increasingly unlikely that the House of Representatives will vote on the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, before the end of the year. The bill-known as the "Gang of Eight bill," referring to a bipartisan group of senators that drafted the bill-proposes to provide … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON, DC: The Montgomery College in Maryland is receiving is $15,000 grant from the Frank Islam and Debbie Dreisman Foundation. The grant will go towards their 2013-2014 Athenaeum Symposia, which is an annually held series of lectures that are given at the Germantown campus of Montgomery College. Frank Islam, president of the foundation, called community colleges “pivotal” to America’s future and said that the Symposia puts Montgomery College in a “leadership role” in relation to other … [Read more...]

For a while now, the performance of the Indian economy has been driving supporters of India worldwide to the sort of frustration that is often experienced by parents and teachers of a gifted teenager whose behavioral issues come in the way of fulfilling his or her enormous promise. Once the poster child of growth, the Indian economy has been having a bumpy ride in the past few years, with growth slowing down and investor confidence taking a major hit. In fact, in the past couple of years, the … [Read more...]

India exists in many different centuries, it has been said. The brutal rape of a young woman in South Delhi, one of the more cosmopolitan parts of the capital, in mid-December, proves that it is hard to argue against that statement. The victim, a 23-old-old student, lost her nearly two-week long battle for life at a Singapore hospital just two days before the New Year's Eve.  The nation reacted to the struggle for survival and the eventual death of the woman with a rare display of collective … [Read more...]

After getting pummeled during the Republican National Convention in Tampa last week, it was finally time for the Democrats to make their case. And that is what one witnessed in Charlotte on Tuesday, the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Speaker after speaker made eloquent and powerful cases to the American people for giving President Barak Obama four more years. There were several speakers that stood out, but none more than San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and Massachusetts … [Read more...]

President Obama's remarks last month that New Delhi needed another wave of reforms triggered widespread consternation in India. The country's notoriously divided political parties, for once, displayed a rare unanimity in condemning the perceived "meddling" of the American president in India's domestic affairs. Blaming "international lobbies like Vodafone" for "spreading this kind of a story," Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily said, "Obama was not properly informed about the things … [Read more...]

A less-than-stellar recovery of the U.S. economy, the inability of the euro zone to dig out of a deep financial hole and a slowdown in emerging economies point to the need for different policy approaches to avoid another global recession. For the world to get out of the current financial trouble, the United States first needs to switch gears. The weakness of the U.S. economy is dragging down other economies because of its sheer size. With a gross domestic product of $15 trillion and per … [Read more...]

Now that Facebook has gone public, the $104 billion dollar question is this - what kind of future awaits the social networking giant on Wall Street? A lot has been written about Facebook, its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the company's $104 billion initial public offering on May 18. It was one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in years. Investors wonder if Facebook will become another Google, whose stock has performed spectacularly since the company's 2004 IPO, or if it will go … [Read more...]