Everything You Need to Know About the Recent Updates on the US-India Nuclear Deal

If you have been keeping up this has been a long week for the US-India Nuclear Deal. There has been a great deal of press on the comings and the goings of the deal and I'd like to bring you a comprehensive update. I will also include a thorough list of Links of Stories I have compiled for all of who are interested.

On October 16th We brought you Breaking News on the Nuclear Deal coming apart for all that could be done with this current government. The problems lay particularly in India with the governments not being able to resolve their differences.

This sparked worry both in India and the US so USINPAC (our parent group) put together an Emergency Delegation to help lobby for the deal in India with major groups. On October 18thUSINPAC put out a press release

The USINPAC delegation intends to assess the perspectives of all stakeholders in the Indian system -- political and technical -- and to provide an Indian audience with the viewpoints of key Indian-Americans who were actively involved in the public discussion of the nuclear exemption for India in the U.S. The Indian-American community played a crucial and unique role in this public discussion.

and a You Tube Video (below).



The video is essentially USINPAC founder Sanjay Puri discussing the importance of the Delegation and how it all came together.

A great deal of press resulted from this effort from USINPAC and Indian American leaders to help lobby for this deal to have a positive end result.
Daily India, The Hindu, NDTV all had great stories highlighting the Delegation and Effort. They mentioned the goals of the delegation and how some Indian American leaders thought the delegation wasn't worthwhile.

Oct. 22nd: With the delegation beginning, USINPAC released another press release talking more about the delegation as it happens and how they plan to meet with the leaders of the BJP, Communist & Congress Parties, the Indian Ambassador, and the Prime Minister.


Oct. 23rd: The Delegation meets with the Prime Minister Singh
We met the Prime Minister who received us very graciously, and found him determined to take the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement forward despite some opposition typical in a vibrant democracy like India, said Mr. Puri.

Very good news being that with the setbacks the PM was still on board and confident and optimistic that all parties will be able to meet in the middle. As you can imagine a great deal of very bold news stories resulted from this message the PM sent out after meeting with the delegation. Economic Times, Hindustan Times, Business Line, and many other media outlets reported this on the 23rd.

Oct. 24th: Delegation continues meetings. The PM delivered a message of assurance to a special nonpublic event with the Indian Military forces as reported by The Telegraph.

A source said Singh spoke “at great length on the deal and he talked about the necessity and the future of the deal”. -Telegraph Reports

Also on the 24th the International Media began to carry the PM Singh's message of confidence including: Reuters , The Hindu, Christian Science Monitor, India Daily, Business Standard

But sources from New Delhi says that PM office has officially told the Left parties that Indian Government has abandoned the implementation plan of the 123 agreement with US. It is up to the next elected Government to look into the matter and do what is necessary.
-India Daily Reports

"Many members of Congress are growing increasingly skeptical of what the Bush administration is negotiating," says Rep. Edward Markey (D) of Massachusetts, a longtime supporter of multilateral nonproliferation efforts. "It's heartening to see the members coming over to me and shaking their head at what the Bush administration went so far to accept." -Christian Science Monitors Report


While the PM riled the troops and the International media carried his message, another important player joined back in the diplomatic fight, Under Secretary of State Burns. NDTV reports Burns urges that Indian leaders sign on to the nuclear deal.
''The Indian Government now needs to make a decision. We do not intrude into the Indian domestic politics, but we do believe that the Indians need to make a decision at some time. We hope the decision would be positive to go ahead because this agreement has enormous benefit for us, " Secretary Burns said to NDTV.

All this was happening while the Delegation continued lobbying as CNN described it "Left-Right and Center". The delegation met with leaders of the BJP and Communist parties as the story describes in the video post below.

"We need to brief our constituency, the Indian-American community, as well as Capitol Hill,'' said Sachdev . He admitted that the purpose is also to “request, push and nudge the leadership to find a way forward”. He also added that what is needed is innovative thinking to reconcile differences. -DNA India

Oct. 26th: Sify does a story on the Delegation meetings, while Business Line editorial writer B.S. Raghavan talks about Why the US is pushing the deal so hard. Where he estimates the deal could rake in as much as $100billion for the US and “an increasingly powerful India represents a singularly positive opportunity to advance (the US) global interests”. Great piece I thought.

The Times of India also ran an editorial piece by Sumit Ganguly entitled "Save the Nuclear Deal". The piece gave great insight from a real scholar on US-Indian relations

The abrupt halt in the quest to move the nuclear deal into a safe harbour has now cast serious doubt about the willingness and ability of any government in New Delhi to act in a responsible, predictable and reliable fashion. -Sumit Ganguly

Oct. 27th: The Australian Reports that as the nuclear deal seems to go sour the worst reports are coming out that could be troubling for India's leading party and PM Singh.

REPORTS that India's redoubtable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seriously considered resigning this week are among the most disturbing recent developments in international politics. -The Australian

As the roller coaster of this deal and the Indian leadership continues it seems that the parties continue to value political destruction versus building whats good and right for the country. This report deeply saddens me as I agree with Mr. Ganguly, this could serious prevent strong relations between the US-India in the future.

Oct. 28th: And the roller coaster continued with Henry Kissinger being interviewed by CNN-IBN watch the video below where he pretty much proclaims a failing of the deal would be worse for the US.






The interview is pretty good as Kissinger really puts the deal into perspective, something Secretary Boucher and Congressman McDermott had assured to USINPAC at a briefing back on September 18th. The deal as important as it is to India is more important to the US and would just be a minor setback in the future of US-India relations.

The Hindustan Times also did a piece somewhat recapping the delegation, recalling how the Indian American leaders became Conduits between the opposition parties in India.
To sum up the delegation in one line is a quote from Sanjay Puri to the newspaper.

"We are taking the message back to Washington that the prime minister is committed to the deal, but it is in a delicate situation," said Puri.

Oct. 29th: Indian Ambassador to the US, Ronan Sen is going to testify before the Lok Sabha in India. CNN-IBN Captures it below.

I will try to brief on this as it happens.

He was concerned that with 2008 being the presidential election year, it would be difficult to shepherd legislation with congressmen and senators distracted by campaigning.

"Time is an enemy," stressed Puri, who was concerned that the next occupier of White House may not be as enthusiastic a backer for the nuclear deal as the incumbent.

-Hindustan Times October 28th.

Time is the problem as the future president won't care as much about this deal and presidential politics well can complicate things. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Below are some blog links as well to some interesting articles I found.

India Blitz: Nuclear Deal
E-News India
India Times

-Varun Mehta

Only Christians Can Be Presidents?

It seems as though John McCain has slipped up to say that he thinks essentially only Christians Can be President. This occured in an interview with a website known as BeliefNet which actually has Presidential Candidates "God-O-Meter" where John McCain ranks the MOST GOD FRIENDLY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE after his video interview stating he would be uncomfortable with a Muslim president.

CNN reports that Muslims and Christians alike are disappointed with these comments where McCain has come out to apologize. I think this shows how out of touch John McCain and the Republican Party is with the American people. A few days back Sanjay Puri had a great piece (Someone Hire the Republicans a Demographic Statistician) which shows how influential the groups the Republicans seem to be ignoring really are.

The question I want to ask is do Republicans ACTUALLY BELIEVE this garbage they spin or are they just trying to win an election from the typical "republican base". The Indian American community has seen little to no traction from the Republican Candidates in responding to community requests. The only candidate who has made an effort so far has been Mitt Romney and you can see his message to the community in the Candidates Message Section.


Jay Shah

Indians take a Page from the Jewish Community

The New York Times recently published an article on how Indian Americans are looking to their Jewish counterparts as role models in advocating civil rights issues and lobbying Congress. Many Indians hope their community can emulate the experience of the Jews in the US, where a small minority has fought prejudice and built political clout. Other Indians find a bond through the threat of terrorism and opposition with Muslims. Whatever the case, there has been a significant growth in secular Indian American organizations as a new generation of Indian Americans has seen a need for it.

Check out this article to learn more about what these two groups have in common and which of these organizations are working together.

SOMEONE HIRE THE REPUBLICANS A DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICIAN: By Sanjay Puri

The leading Republican Presidential Candidates: Giuliani, Thompson, Romney and McCain were a no show at last Thursday night’s Republican debate at Morgan State University. It is shocking to see the lack of foresight about the changing electorate demographics in the Country by the Republican leadership. Being a party of Southern white voters is not going to win them too many Presidential elections in the future.

If the Republicans hired demographic statisticians they would have told them that currently African Americans and Hispanics comprise about 80 plus million out of 300 million Americans, add another 10 million Asians and they are basically over 30 percent of the population. Also future trends show that one out of two new born in this country is a Hispanic. So these statisticians would tell them that it is a demographic suicide to alienate these fast growing minority groups.

Being a no show at key minority events is a slap on the face of these communities since these events are symbolic to them of their growing maturity in the political process. The Presidential candidates are taking the approach that they are not going to get too many African American votes in the case of the Morgan State University so why bother. Well it could be a self fulfilling prophecy for the Republicans since their share of the African American vote could be lower than usual in 2008.

Their strident tone in the immigration debate in the Senate and the continued anti immigration positions by these Presidential candidates in the primaries will cost them dearly with the Hispanic vote and also campaign support from the affluent Asian community. They don’t get it that just like anti-immigration groups don’t like immigration and don’t make the distinction between legal and illegal immigration, pro immigration groups consider Presidential candidates who are against illegal immigration as being against immigration. The Republican leadership needs to be reminded of Pete Wilson in California and Proposition 187. Several key states besides the two coasts are impacted by the immigrant vote in places like South West and Mountain West USA.

The leadership of the Republican Party which is not running for the Presidential race or aligned with any of these candidates should step up and clearly speak about this issue and establish ground rules for the future. Mandating some presence and participation at key minority political events even if they are not in the friendliest atmosphere is a must if they want to be a party that can produce a presidential candidate that is going to look for support from the entire nation. Right now they way the political map is configured, between the African American, Hispanic and Asian communities the Republicans are getting positioned to write off over 30% of Americans and look to win a majority of 51% of support from 70% of the votes. Do the math, getting 51% from 100% is hard enough, 51% from 70% is impossible. They might wring out a bare victory in 2008 but the future looks very bleak.

The irony is that if you put aside the issue of Iraq which finds deep anguish in most Americans, there are minorities who are fiscally conservative and emphasize family values. But the Republicans have not really reached out to them and they feel that the reaching out has been mainly for campaign funds and not a systematic approach of nurturing them. Having Sen. Martinez and Lt. Gov. Steele in key positions at the Republican Party helps but Sen. Martinez could not get his own party lined up on the immigration debate.

The Republicans are at a key defining moment,, it is time for their sharpest minds like Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, Haley Barbour and others to decide whether they want to be a party of the present or of the future since they are about to be wiped out by a demographic explosion which even a amateur demographer can advise them on!
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Sanjay Puri
Chairman USINPAC

Indians on the Hill

The Washington Post just published an article on the growing influence of Indian-American groups in Washington. Using the example of the landmark US-India nuclear deal, the article points out that even politicians who use nuclear nonproliferation as a staple of their strategy came around in bipartisan form to overwhelmingly accept the deal. Why was this? Many attribute it to the powerful presence of Indian lobbyist groups on the Hill.

Sanjay Puri, Chairman and Founder of USINPAC, is interviewed on why he founded the group and the position USINPAC and other Indian-American groups will have in the future. USINPAC 2008 Web Director Varun Mehta was also quoted in the article using the example of Obama’s swift reaction to the memo his campaign sent out attacking Hillary Clinton’s ties to wealthy Indian-Americans and alleged support of outsourcing.

Throughout the article it is mentioned that many of these new Indian-American groups are trying model themselves after Jewish-American and Israeli lobbyist groups that have had success in representing a small minority of the country on the Hill. What are you thoughts? Is this the right path for Indian-Americans? Where would you like to see the community in the future? Tell us what you think of the article!

Anay Shah
Blog Editor

The Clinton's & India

Senator Clinton's support in the Indian American community has been getting a lot of coverage of late. This piece in the Washington Post is typical. I think that USINPAC Chairman, Sanjay Puri, makes a good point in the article. The fact is that both Bill and Hillary Clinton have a long history reaching out to the Indian American community and Indian Americans clearly appreciate that the Clintons feel warmly towards India.

As the community continues to get more and more involved in politics, we will certainly see a lot more articles on campaign contributions. That is to be expected, and it is good for community that our active participation and fundraising in noted in major publications. It really highlights how important it is for community leaders who are fundraising for any candidate to go the extra mile to comply with the letter and spirit of campaign finance laws. It would be a real shame if a few bad apples tarnish the reputation of the community when proper political participation and fundraising is something we should all be proud and excited about.