India, US ask officials to urgently start consultations on WTO

India's tough stand led to impasse in the WTO. New Delhi had decided not to ratify WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which is dear to the developed world, without any concrete movement in finding a permanent solution to its public food stock-holding issue for food security purposes.

"The leaders discussed their concerns about the current impasse in the WTO and its effect on the multilateral trading system, and directed their officials to consult urgently along with other WTO members on the next steps," said a joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama.

India has asked WTO to amend the norms for calculating agriculture subsidies so that the country could continue to procure foodgrains from farmers at minimum support price and sell them to poor at cheaper rates without violating the norms.

The current WTO norms limit the value of food subsidies at 10 percent of the total value of foodgrain production. However, the quantum of subsidy is computed after taking into consideration prices that prevailed two decades ago.

There are apprehensions that India may breach the 10 percent after the full implementation of its food security programme.

According to a WTO filing, India has provided a total farm subsidy of USD 56 billion, of which trade distorting subsidy amounts to only USD 13.8 billion for 23 commodities, including rice and wheat.

In case of paddy, the subsidy provided by the Indian government during 2010-11 worked out to be only around 6 percent of the total output of the commodity in value terms. For wheat, the subsidy is negative one percent.

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Facebook founder to visit India later this month

Zuckerberg, who will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will be in India to address the first Internet.org summit taking place on 9th and 10th October in the city.

The young billionaire is expected to meet members of other key ministries as well.

Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based corporation, after Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Micrsoft's Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.

'Internet.Org' aims to make Internet access affordable for people across the globe.

Focussed on enabling the next five billion people without Internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.

The partners are collaborating on developing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploying Internet access in under-served communities.

The Internet.org summit will bring together experts, officials and industry leaders to focus on ways to deliver more Internet services for people in languages other than English.

Zuckerberg will also meet Modi to talk about how Facebook and the Indian government can collaborate on Internet.org.

In July, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sandberg visited India. She had met Modi, who has effectively used social networking during his election campaign and later even in governance.

When Modi met Sandberg, he had suggested the use of Facebook for improving governance, better interaction between people and the government, and to attract more tourists to India.

India is an important market for the social networking company. With over one billion users globally, the company gets over 100 million users from India. Many of these users log onto the website from their mobile devices.

According to research firm eMarketer, the number of users in India will touch 108.9 million by the end of the year as compared to 77.8 million in 2013.

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PM Modi meets supporters before biding adieu to US

"Thank You America," said Modi as he concluded his last official engagement of his five-day visit at an event organised by the US-India Business Council (USIBC) on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Modi met US President Barack Obama for the first time and held bilateral talks on improving relations between India and America. Durig the meeting both the leaders agreed to make joint efforts to dismantle terrorist safe havens besides stepping up cooperation in defence, energy, economy and space.

Modi met Obama in the Oval Office of the White House, at the end of which the two leaders issued a joint statement that promised to take the India-US relationship to a new height.

He also met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Nepalese Premier Sushil Koirala.

Modi also held meetings with a host of top US businessmen and noted American leaders like Bill and Hillary Clinton, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In all he met more than 50 top US lawmakers and three Governors including Indian-origin South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

During his trip, Modi also visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York and the Gandhi Statue in Washington DC.

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India not a major player in US' plan to contain China: Media

Modi's visit to US drew considerable attention in China with the official media featuring his visit reports on the front-page with headlines like "Modi makes rock star debut in US".

"The direction of Indian-American relationships has aroused intensive attention. Media reports say that India has a vital role to play in US strategy of rebalancing Asia-Pacific. Many people anticipate that US will rely on India to counter China," an article in the ruling CPC-run People's Daily Online said.

"In fact, no matter how close the relationship between India and US grows, India will not be a major player on the American team. The 'rebalancing' strategy consists of three parts - politics, economy and security. However, Indian national power is not sufficiently strong in any one of the three aspects", it said.

The article stated that the relations between the two countries "deteriorated" as a result of a diplomatic issue when an Indian diplomat was arrested in US last year.

Unlike other traditional US allies in Asia such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, India will not take on a major role in US' "rebalance in Asia-Pacific" strategy, it said.

The write-up further said that economically India cannot be a major factor in the important economic agenda of the rebalancing strategy.

Noting that the key element of US rebalance strategy is The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the article said India had not been invited in the negotiation process.

"In respect of security, America hopes to cooperate with India to maintain regional stability. But currently US strategy focuses on relationships between its traditional partners including Japan, the Philippines and Australia. When it comes to India, American interest is limited to ammunition supply and developing the military forces", it said.

"It is unrealistic for America to rely on India to play a leading role in its rebalance in Asia-Pacific strategy. There is little prospect of India and US reaching consensus on Chinese issues, it added.

The article said that India adhered to an all-round foreign policy strategy and gives priority not only to the India-US ties, but also attaches great importance to Sino-India relationships.

"Fundamentally, India was one of the countries behind the Non-Aligned Movement. Every Indian government has emphasized that non-alignment is a basic principle of their foreign policy," it said.

"The unsolved territorial disputes will not affect the development of Sino-India relations. China and India vowed to forge a closer development partnership when Chinese President Xi Jinping finished his state visit to India a week ago," it said.

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China facing growing US pressure over Hong Kong protests

A day after United States backed calls by thousands of protesters for greater autonomy in selecting candidates for Hong Kong's Chief Executive, US officials said Secretary of State John Kerry would discuss the issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi when the two meet in Washington on Wednesday.

"I expect it will come up," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, referring to the Hong Kong protests. "It is in the news. It is an issue we are concerned about and focused on."
             
The protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy and have called on Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to step down after Beijing ruled a month ago that it would vet candidates wishing to run for Hong Kong's leadership in 2017. They have threatened to escalate action over the next few days.
             
Psaki said Kerry was expected to say that the Hong Kong Chief Executive's legitimacy would be enhanced if people have a genuine choice of candidates, a position expressed by the White House on Monday that went beyond the administration's previous broad calls for greater democracy.
             
"That certainly is our position," Psaki said, adding that it had been communicated to China and that other issues would also be on the agenda. There are certainly a range of issues on bilateral, regional and global issues that they will discuss during their meeting."
     
United States has been carefully calibrating its response to the demonstrations, voicing support for non-violent protests, while signaling it has little interest in seeing them escalate and risk a harsher crackdown by Chinese authorities.

The official aim of Wang's visit, which also includes meetings at the White House and Pentagon, is to prepare for a summit between Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama in Beijing in November, according to the Chinese embassy in Washington.

In a toughly worded letter to Leung on Tuesday, the chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Robert Menendez, accused Beijing of 'reneging on the promises it made to the people of Hong Kong'.

"I write today to express my grave concerns over current events in Hong Kong," he said, urging Leung "to exercise your leadership to guarantee that your citizens, the people of Hong Kong, receive the full democratic rights and freedoms that they have been promised and which they deserve."
             
Senior US military officials also made clear they were keeping an eye on China's response to the protests, and hoped it would not lead to a major crackdown such as the one 25 years ago when Chinese forces killed hundreds of demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

“Anything like that is concerning," Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer said. A lot of us have memories of Tiananmen Square, and would not like to see that sort of a thing repeated.

China rules Hong Kong under a formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China.
             
Any US response could be a tricky balancing act, especially given Beijing's transformation into a global economic powerhouse and how inter-dependent US and Chinese economies have become since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.

On Monday, China warned against other countries interfering or sending any wrong message to protesters.

US officials have steadfastly denied Chinese accusations of meddling in Beijing's internal affairs.
            
Obama is due to travel to Beijing in November for an Asia-Pacific summit and a meeting with Xi, and the White House said the US leader was likely to raise human rights issues with his counterpart.

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India may seek help of US for Dawood extradition

A joint US-India Joint Statement expressing this resolve after the summit talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday came on a day US Treasury Department slapped sanctions against individuals and networks linked to two militant groups based in Pakistan.

"The leaders stressed the need for joint and concerted efforts, including the dismantling of safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks, to disrupt all financial and tactical support for networks such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the D-company, and the Haqqanis," the statement said while referring to issues relating to Homeland Security Cooperation.

D-company is a reference to Dawood Ibrahim, an underworld don who is the mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai blasts. On March 12, 1993, serial bomb blasts rocked the western metropolis at various places, killing more than 250 and injuring over 700.

The statement is considered significant as Dawood is widely believed to be in Pakistan, and the Haqqani network, which has been active along the Afghanistan border, has been working against both Indian and US interests. Dawood is also believed to often shuttle between Dubai and Karachi.

Indications were that India would seek US help in getting Dawood extradited to face trial in India.

Indian External Affairs Ministry officials declined to elaborate on the Dawood issue beyond the resolve of the two countries to fight terror and criminal elements as reflected in the joint statement.

"Samajdhar ke liye ishara hi kafi hai" (A hint is enough for a wise person)," the ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told reporters in reply to questions in this regard.

In October 2003, US designated Dawood as a global terrorist having links with Al Qaeda and financing activities of LeT and other terrorist organisations.

Pledging to intensify cooperation in counter-terrorism and security, the two countries also agreed to step up intelligence sharing.

Sharing concerns over the threat of terrorism in South Asia and emerging challenges in West Asia, where Islamist group ISIS has been on the rampage, Modi during a joint media appearance with Obama said the two countries agreed to intensify cooperation in counter terrorism and intelligence sharing.

Modi and Obama also reiterated their call for Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the November 2008 terror attack which killed 166 people.

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Can't match Modi's 'rock star reception' in New York: Kerry

"Mr Prime Minister, I'm forced to admit that no matter how warm our welcome here today, we're never going to be able to top your rock star reception at Madison Square Garden," Kerry said with Modi standing by his side at the State Department.

His remarks attracted applause and laughter from the audience.

"Billy Joel (American pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer) called me this morning to make sure you hadn't taken his regular gig there," said the Secretary of State.

"None of us have been able to turn on a television or pick up a newspaper without seeing the celebrity coverage that the Prime Minister has received. And with it, for all of us, there's a sense of shared excitement and a sense of shared possibility," Kerry said in his remarks.

President Obama often says that, for him, only in America would his journey be possible, he said.
"And Prime Minister Modi's journey from a young man who sold tea by the railroad in Gujarat to the Prime Minister's residence on Race Course Road seems no less improbable," said the Secretary of State at the luncheon, which he hosted along with US Vice President, Joe Biden.

"This belief in opportunity, even against long odds, is really unique to our two countries. We are two countries who begin our founding documents with the same words, the same three words: 'We the people'. We're two countries where entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation is in both of our DNA," Kerry said.

"The only two countries that could have given birth to Hollywood and Bollywood, the only two countries where high-tech hubs like Bangalore and Silicon Valley could blossom and be connected, even as they are independent in their creativity.

"We are two countries that, as Swami Vivekananda said in Chicago more than a century ago, have sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations on Earth,"
he said.

Biden said he and President Barack Obama enjoyed the dinner with Modi on Monday night at the White House.

"Secretary Kerry and I and along with President Obama enjoyed our dinner last night. We had a small dinner, where I think all of us thought it was a remarkable way in which President Obama and the Prime Minister connected, each discussing what each of our countries faced and what needed to be done," he said.

"It was really quite remarkable. I've been to many of these dinners, but I can't think of any one that went as well. And Happy Navratri, Mr Prime Minister. It's good of you to honour us and visit us – during this holy week," he said.

"The Prime Minister is fasting and we keep taking him to dinners and lunches. As we Catholics would say, that's an occasion for sin, but we appreciate the fact he has spent so much time with us," Biden said.

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