Assholes!
"India hopes John Kerry can smooth relations" by Lara Jakes | Associated Press August 01, 2014
NEW DELHI — Given a rare opportunity to lunch with Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Gaurav Dalmia was less interested Thursday in discussing the planned topics at hand, including climate change or the trade dispute between India and the United States.
Instead, the Indian businessman was focused on Kerry, and whether he would be able to smooth over brittle relations between Washington and New Delhi for economic growth.
‘‘There’s a perception in India that Mr. Kerry is not very pro-India. I want to see what the reality is,’’ said Dalmia, who runs a commodities firm.
He was among about 50 Indian politicians, scholars, and businessmen who attended a private meeting with Kerry and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker as they pitched a fresh start in a strained partnership with India’s government.
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Their mission will be neither easy nor immediate. Despite both nations’ desire to move forward where their interests intersect, including on foreign investment, defense partnerships, and developing science and technology, the United States and India are still stalemated on a number of areas.
The two countries have squared off over a major trade deal, regulation of chemical emissions into the environment, the limited number of US visas given to visiting Indians, and American surveillance of the ruling Indian political party.
New Delhi is still nursing a grudge over the arrest last December of India’s deputy consul general in New York who was deported after she was indicted on charges of visa fraud and under-paying her maid.
Oh. Turns out they had good reason. Sorry.
And the Obama administration has been seeking since May to build trust with the United States and newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who was denied an American visa in 2005 after being accused of complicity in religious riots that killed more than 1,000 Muslims three years earlier in the country’s western Gujarat state, where he was serving as the top elected official.
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The article is alarming because it is indicating that the U.S. is LOSING INDIA! Modi's independent nationalism is obviously not going over well.
Also see:
"More than 150 people were trapped Wednesday when a massive mudslide swamped a village of 40 homes in western India during heavy monsoon rains, and officials said they had little hope of rescuing many of those missing as weather conditions were expected to worsen Thursday. Surjeet Singh Guleria, a senior officer with the National Disaster Response Force, blamed deforestation."
"Mudslide swallows Indian village; at least 41 dead" Associated Press August 01, 2014
MALIN, India — Rescuers using earth-moving equipment and their bare hands dug through heavy mud and debris Thursday after a landslide engulfed an entire village in western India, killing at least 41 people and leaving about 100 missing and feared dead.
More than a day after the Wednesday morning landslide, authorities said the chances of survival were slim for anyone still trapped under the mud in Malin, a village of about 700 people in Pune district of Maharashtra state.
Suresh Jadhav, a district official, said around 40 homes were wiped out.
Two days of torrential rains triggered the landslide and continued to pound the area as rescuers brought bodies covered in soaked white sheets to ambulances while relatives watched, weeping. Bad communications, dangerous roads, and debris delayed national rescue personnel from reaching the area for several hours Wednesday.
The disaster only came to light when a bus driver passed by and saw that the village had disappeared under masses of mud and earth.
‘‘The driver returned to a nearby city and alerted authorities,’’ Jadhav said.
Forty-one bodies had been recovered and nine people pulled out alive, rescue official Suresh Yadav said.
Those rescued included a mother and her 3-month-old son. Pramila Lende, the mother, said she was feeding the baby when she heard the roar of rocks and mud hurtling down the hillside.
‘‘I started running with my child, but a heap of mud landed on my body,’’ she said. She kept the baby in an area with breathing space until his cries were heard, she said.
Rescuers expected the death toll to rise. Sandeep Rai Rathore, a top official of the National Disaster Response Force, estimated that around 100 people were missing and feared dead.
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Didn't that happen the last time Kerry visited?
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Death toll is up to 63
