Tag: joe biden

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New Poll: Haley, DeSantis Outperform Biden

Biden took a one point lead over Trump (49 per cent to 48 percent), while lagging behind Haley by four points …reports Asian Lite News

In a recent poll, it was found that if the 2024 presidential election were held today, US President Joe Biden would face tough competition.

Republican candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis would both outperform him, while he would only narrowly defeat his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Biden took a one point lead over Trump (49 per cent to 48 percent), while lagging behind Haley by four points (49 per cent to 45 per cent) and DeSantis by two points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, the Fox News survey said.

Released this week, the poll conducted between October 6-9, showed that the Indian-American former South Carolina Governor has made the greatest gains since September, having doubled her numbers with 10 per cent support.

Haley also garnered the highest number of defections among Democrats (9 per cent support her), while Trump gets the least (5 per cent of Democrats back him).

“She has the momentum, she has the experience, and she’s the only person who’s consistently polled as beating Joe Biden in the general election,” former Congressman Will Hurd, who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, told Forbes.

A CNN poll showed last month that Haley is the only Republican who can beat Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

“Haley stands as the only Republican candidate to hold a lead over Biden, with 49 percent to Biden’s 43 per cent in a hypothetical match between the two,” the CNN reported.

The Fox News survey also showed that despite facing a bevy of legal challenges, former President Trump maintained his lead in the Republican presidential contest.

The 77-year-old received 59 per cent support among Republican primary voters, and he has been above 50 per cent since March and hit a record 60 per cent in September.

Just after her first Republican primary debate in late August, Haley had said that Trump would not be the party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential elections.

Haley claimed earlier this month that Trump sent her a birdcage, a couple of days after he had posted a social media message calling the her a “birdbrain”.

Responding to Trump, along with a picture of the birdcage, Haley wrote on X: “Love this. It means we are in 2nd and moving up fast. Bring it!”

At the second Republican debate, Haley slammed Trump over his policies on China, saying that while in being in office, he did not focus on issues like Asian nation’s role in fentanyl being shipped into the US, placing a base in Cuba or sending spy balloons across the country.

ALSO READ: Trump attacks President Biden on foreign policy

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Biden confirms 14 American deaths

Biden’s address in the White House came after his third phone call in four days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu….reports Asian Lite News

Condemning the attacks on Israel as “pure unadulterated evil,” US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the stated purpose of the terrorist organisation Hamas is “to kill Jews.”

Noting that over 1,000 people have died in Israel, including at least 14 American citizens, Biden said people in Israel suffered “pure unadulterated evil” at the “bloody hands of Hamas, a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This is an act of sheer evil.”

“Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children – stomach-turning reports of babies being killed, entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace,” the president said.

Biden’s address in the White House came after his third phone call in four days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his remarks, he outlined the US military assistance being sent to help Israel in its fight.

A day ago, in a stern warning to Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “though Israel did not start this war” but “will finish it”.

“Israel is at war. We didn’t want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way. But though Israel didn’t start this war, Israel will finish it,” said Netanyahu in an address to Israel.

Meanwhile, Biden also said that security has been beefed up around “centres of Jewish life” in the US.

“We are also taking steps at home, in cities across the United States of America. Police departments have stepped up security around centres of Jewish life,” said Biden adding, that there was “no place for hate in America.”

Saying that the US knows that American citizens are among those being held by Hamas and that he has directed his team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the US government.

“More than 1,000 civilians were slaughtered in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens were killed,” said Biden.

In a post on X, Biden said that he along with Vice President Kamala Harris discussed the attack in Israel.

“We connected with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss coordination to support Israel, deter hostile actors, and protect innocent people,” his post added.

Since the attack on Saturday, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III has been working to make clear that the US unequivocally supports Israel’s right to defend itself. “We’re also making very clear to adversaries or those that might be entertaining entering this conflict to escalate it that they should think twice and not take advantage of the instability,” the official said, according to a statement by the US Department of Defence. (ANI)

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Biden reassures allies of continued support for Ukraine

Joe Biden.

All the countries that participated in the call stressed that their backing of Ukraine remains unchanged…reports Asian Lite News

President Joe Biden gathered other world powers Tuesday to coordinate on Ukraine as it battles Russia in a war now almost 20 months long — a deliberate show of US support at a time when the future of its aid is entangled with a volatile faction of House Republicans who want to cut off money to Kyiv.

The phone call — convened by the United States and joined by key allies in Europe as well as the leaders of Canada and Japan — was held three days after Biden signed legislation hastily sent to him by Congress that kept the federal government funded but left off billions in funding for Ukraine’s war effort that the White House had vigorously backed.

All the countries that participated in the call stressed that their backing of Ukraine remains unchanged, and no one questioned whether US support of Kyiv was in doubt, according to the White House. But the administration sternly warned Tuesday that Congress must not let the flow of aid be disrupted, lest Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit any lapses to his advantage.

“Time is not our friend,” said John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House. He warned that any gaps in US support “will make Putin believe he can wait us out.”

Kirby said the current tranche of congressionally-approved US aid would be enough to help Ukraine for another “couple of weeks” or a “couple of months,” although the precise estimate would hinge on current battlefield conditions.

The outlook for the future of Ukraine aid has been murky at best after Biden on Saturday signed a bill to fund US government operations through mid-November that ignored the billions in additional funds for Kyiv requested by Biden in late August. The president, as well as congressional Democratic leaders, had stressed after the vote that they had expected then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to follow through on his public commitment to Ukraine aid even as Republican resistance to it continues.

Biden went as far as to imply that e had a deal with McCarthy to move Ukraine aid once the government was funded, although the speaker has denied that is the case and the White House has refused to elaborate on the president’s remarks. Meanwhile, McCarthy signaled over the weekend that he supports linking new Ukraine funding to security improvements at the US border with Mexico. Kirby said Tuesday that the White House supports both issues on their own merits but not tied together.

McCarthy was ejected from his own job on Tuesday in dramatic fashion on the House floor. Even as the White House said it was staying out of his fight to keep the speaker’s gavel, Kirby emphasized that other House GOP leaders support Ukraine aid, not just McCarthy himself.

In Poland, President Andrzej Duda said after the call that Biden had assured the group of continued US support for Ukraine and of his strong conviction that Congress will not walk away.

“Everyone took the floor. The main subject was Ukraine, the situation in Ukraine,” Duda said at a news conference in Kielce, Poland. “President Joe Biden began with telling us about the situation in the US and what is the real political situation around Ukraine. He assured us that there is backing for the continuing support for Ukraine, first of all for the military support.

He said that he will get that backing in the Congress.”

Duda said Biden assured the leaders that support for Ukraine in the US Congress is much broader than media reports suggest. He said Biden called on the participants to continue their support for Ukraine and that everyone assured him that they would.

ALSO READ: US Judge issues gag order against Trump in NY fraud case 

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Biden Orders Release of $6 Billion in Iranian Oil Revenue Amid Prisoner Swap

Coming ahead of the UN General Assembly this week, President Joe Biden and Iranian hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi will both speak out their views and intentions…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has ordered the unfreezing of Iran’s $6 billion of oil revenue in an effort to thaw the icy relations between the two countries over the nuclear issue even as a prisoner swap was negotiated successfully,  some of them were on a plane back to US.

The President’s deal comes ahead of a UN meeting here where Biden and Iran’s hardliner president will both speak, unfolding as it does, against a backdrop of nuclear tensions between the two countries.Five Americans imprisoned in Iran were on a plane Monday along with two family members after being released in a prisoner exchange the Biden administration negotiated with Tehran, media reports said.As part of the deal, $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues was released by the Biden administration and five Iranians charged or convicted of non-violent crimes were freed by the US, according to US officials.The exchange is in no way tied to the stalled nuclear talks between the US and Iran, but does come as a move to defuse the increasing tensions that periodically threaten a military confrontation. 

Coming ahead of the UN General Assembly this week, President Joe Biden and Iranian hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi will both speak out their views and intentions.Political observers feel that the prisoner swap between US and Iran could heighten tensions in the US presidential race, USA Today said. Republicans especially presidential hopefuls such as Trump, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and others have attacked the Biden administration’s decision on the prisoner exchange, dubbing it as a “Ransom Pay-out” to a country that sponsors terrorism.The exchange set free five Americans accused of being spies or working on behalf of the US government in Iran. 

The UN described their detentions as “arbitrary”. The White House rejected allegations that they were spies as false.A senior Biden administration official confirmed that two family members were also on the plane leaving Iran for Qatar and then on to the US. Three of the five Americans, all dual US-Iran citizens, are Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz. The identities of the two other Americans have not been disclosed.

A senior Biden administration official said those two Americans wish to keep their identities private.Also on the plane are Namazi’s mother and Tahbaz’s wife, both of whom were previously unable to leave Iran. Businessman Namazi, 51, was arrested in 2015 while visiting his family in Tehran. Sharghi, 59, was detained in 2018 a year after moving to Iran from the US to work for a tech investment company. 

Environmentalist Tahbaz, 67, who also holds a British passport, was arrested in 2018 while working on a conservation project in Iran, USA Today reported.Two of the five Iranians freed now had been convicted of non-violent crimes while three others were awaiting trial and had not been convicted, two senior Biden administration officials said. The five Americans were moved from prison to house arrest in an Iranian hotel in an interim step towards their release last month.US President Biden negotiated the tough deal after months of indirect negotiations between US and Iranian officials.

The deal led to the US also releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues, transferred from banks in South Korea to Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that is an ally of both nations. The US and Iran don’t enjoy any formal diplomatic relations. The funds released come with a rider that they be used for humanitarian purposes only, media reports said.The Biden administration official stated the US government will be ordering new sanctions against Iran’s ministry of intelligence and its former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.  The act is meant to stall wrongful detentions.

The measure became a law in late 2020. Levinson, a former FBI agent, disappeared during a visit to an Iranian island in 2007, media reports said.The US has been freezing Iran’s assets even as it kept increasing the economic sanctions ever since President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in 2018. That deal aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear activities as the western nations suspected ambitions of Iran to become a nuclear power , which Iran has constantly denied.”If Iran tries to divert the funds or use them for anything other than a limited humanitarian purpose authorized, the Biden administration “will take action to lock up the funds,” the official said.A US official who wished to remain anonymous rebutted Republican criticism that the releasing of Iran’s oil revenues was a ransom payout to a rogue nation saying the monies don’t come from US taxpayers.  Oversight of how the money is used will be provided by the US Treasury, Qatar and aid organisations.

However, Iran’s foreign ministry and state media have also appeared to claim that the unfrozen funds in Qatar would be under Tehran’s direct and unrestricted control. “Humanitarian means whatever the Iranian people need. So, this money will be budgeted for those needs, and the needs of the Iranian people will be decided and determined by the Iranian government,” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said in a recent interview with NBC News.

ALSO READ-President Biden May Have Created His Own Problems

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Joe Biden Nominates Jacob Lew as Ambassador to Israel

Currently, Lew is managing partner of Lindsay Goldberg LLC and a visiting professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has nominated former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew as Washington’s new Ambassador to Israel, the White House announced.

Lew, whose nomination needs Senate approval, will succeed Tom Nides, who stepped down from the post in July after having served the role since December 2021, reports Xinhua news agency.

If confirmed, Lew will travel to Jerusalem, where the US Embassy was relocated from Tel Aviv during former President Donald Trump’s administration.

An orthodox Jew with deep experience in public service, Lew is expected to be confirmed by the Senate in a relatively smooth process, according to analysis by US media, despite the ambassadorship being his first overseas duty.

Lew served as the Treasury Secretary during the second presidential term of Barack Obama.

He also held the posts of White House Chief of Staff, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the inaugural deputy Secretary of State for management and resources.

Between 1993 and 1994, Lew was special assistant to the president under then President Bill Clinton.

Before that, he served as a Congressional aide to Democratic lawmakers in the House.

Currently, Lew is managing partner of Lindsay Goldberg LLC and a visiting professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.

He earned a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College.

The US Ambassador to Israel is one of the most important ambassadorships for Washington.

Biden tapped Lew for the job at a critical point in time when the administration is walking a tightrope between properly responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push for a controversial judicial overhaul in the country and avoiding the US-Israeli alliance from deteriorating too much due to friction over the issue.

The Biden administration is also at odds with Netanyahu’s government over an intention from Washington to re-negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran, which Israel perceives as an existential threat.

The former Trump administration pulled the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, of which Lew was involved in the drafting.

In the meantime, the Biden administration is trying to broker a normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

As part of the Arab-Israel conflict, ties between Tel Aviv and Riyadh have been fraught historically, and the two countries have never established diplomatic relations. 

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Biden likely to permanently block Grand Canyon mining

The White House previously announced that the President Biden would make climate change and his environmental agenda a focus of his stops on Arizona tour.

US President Joe Biden is leaning toward designating a vast area near the Grand Canyon as a national monument to safeguard it from uranium mining, a media report said.

“Leaders of local tribes and environmentalists have spent years lobbying to protect areas near the park from potential uranium mining, which they say would threaten aquifers and water supplies,” Xinhua news agency quoted The Washington Post report as saying citing sources.

“They have asked Washington to double the protected area around the canyon by including 1.1 million acres of public lands in a Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument.”

According to the report, Biden will embark on a tour through Arizona next week.

The White House previously announced that the President would make climate change and his environmental agenda a focus of his stops on the tour.

Federal officials have started telling tribal and environmental groups to be available for a potential Grand Canyon announcement early next week, which would fall during Biden’s travel, said the report.

“No decisions have been made,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in an email.

“But I can tell you that President Biden has conserved more land and water in his first year than any president since JFK, and his climate protection record is unmatched.”

Uranium deposits sit deep within sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone layers across the US Southwest.

In the Grand Canyon region, uranium ore is found in geologic features called breccia pipes.

Uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park began in the 1950s at Orphan Mine. At least eight uranium mines have operated near the park, including the active Canyon Mine.

Since 2012, a 20-year mineral withdrawal has blocked new efforts to mine uranium on 1 million acres of public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.

But the relief is temporary.

As of May 2022, there were still nearly 600 mining claims on national forest and other public lands around the Grand Canyon.

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US-Korea-Japan: Biden to host Asian allies in August

US President Joe Biden will host a trilateral summit with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington on August 18, the White House said.

“At the summit (in Camp David), the leaders will celebrate a new chapter in their trilateral relationship as they reaffirm their strong bonds of friendship and the ironclad alliances between the US and Japan, and the US and the Republic of Korea,” Yonhap News Agency quoted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as saying in a statement on Friday, referring to South Korea by its official name.

The leaders will mainly discuss threats posed by North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile programs, according to Jean-Pierre.

“The three leaders will discuss expanding trilateral cooperation across the Indo-Pacific and beyond — including to address the continued threat posed by the DPRK and to strengthen ties with ASEAN and the Pacific Islands,” the White House spokesperson said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Also confirming the development, spokesperson of the South Korean presidential office Lee Do-woon said: “This summit will be an important opportunity to elevate the cooperation among the three countries that share core values to a new level. We expect the three nations to enhance the rules-based international order together and to make more active contributions to regional and global security and economic prosperity.”

As for the summit’s agenda, the spokesperson said the three leaders will hold in-depth discussions on policy coordination regarding the North Korean nuclear and missile threats, as well as cooperation on economic security and other major regional and global issues.

The proposed summit will be the first stand-alone trilateral summit to be held as the leaders of the US, South Korea and Japan have only held trilateral summits on the sidelines of other gatherings, such as regional meetings, in the past, according to Seoul officials.

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said the summit will also mark the first visit to Camp David by a foreign leader since 2015.

“At the summit, the leaders will celebrate a new chapter in their trilateral relationship, and they will reaffirm strong bonds of friendship,” Kirby said at a press briefing.

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Diaspora’s success redefines US perception of India

Even though Indians are just 1 per cent of the American population, they are more than 10 per cent of the Fortune 500 CEOs, a report by Meenakshi Iyer

The rapid rise of Indian-Americans from politics to administration, entrepreneurship to technology, medicine to hospitality, science to academia has put the global spotlight like never before on the high-achieving four million-plus strong diaspora.

The community happens to be the most educated with the highest median income in the US, with an average household earning of $123,700 — making them the top earners in the US among other Asians in the country.

As the profile of the Indian American community — now the second-largest immigrant group in the US — has grown, so too has its economic, political, and social influence, according to a recent Carnegie Endowment study.

In 2010, only 18 per cent of Americans saw India as “very important” to the United States, according to The Chicago Council survey.

Now, India is perceived by Americans as their seventh favourite nation in the world, with 70 per cent of people viewing India favourably in 2023, says a Gallup survey.

Much of how America views India today can be attributed to the success of this community, which according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has played a significant role in the all-round development of the nation they live in and also strengthened the India-US relationship.

The fifth largest economy of the world, India today is seen in the US as a strong bilateral partner sharing common democratic values with broad-based and multi-sectoral cooperation in sectors like trade and investment, defence and security, education, science and technology, cyber security, etc.

American businesses heavily rely on highly-skilled workers from India to fill the gaps in IT and engineering sectors via the H-1B visa programme. These visa holders create prospects for US citizens, by enabling companies to invest in domestic operations instead of sending jobs abroad.

As US Ambassador Eric Garcetti recently said: “India is a place where dreams become reality every day. Our counties have so much in common. Indian dreams and American dreams are two sides of the same coin.”

Addressing the 2019 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, then Foreign Minister late Sushma Swaraj had noted that while the Indian diaspora started migrating centuries ago, it was the migration of the educated, highly-skilled and dynamic young Indians that brought laurels to India.

The dominance of Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and Parag Agarwal in the IT sector has strengthened the image of India in the US as a technology powerhouse and a source of quality human resources.

With US Vice President Kamala Harris sitting atop the political ladder, the US House of Representatives has five Indian Americans — Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Shri Thanedar.

PM Modi at the State Department Luncheon with VP Kamala Harris, at White House, in Washington DC.

There are close to 60 Indian-American CEOs in Fortune 500. Even though Indians are just 1 per cent of the American population, they are more than 10 per cent of the Fortune 500 CEOs with the likes of Laxman Narasimhan (Starbucks) and Raj Subramaniam (FedEx).

The US now has 20,000 Indian-American professors and at least a third of companies in the Silicon Valley that come for funding, and have an Indian American co-founder, according to Indiaspora founder M.R. Rangaswami.

According to foreign policy experts, it is the success of this community, which has dramatically changed the US perception of Indians and India, with its ability to spread Indian soft power, lobby for India’s national interests, and contribute economically to their mother country’s rise.

As part of “soft diplomacy”, Indian-Americans played a pivotal role in the fructification of the historic Indo-US nuclear deal in 2005.

The community also urged the political establishment — right from the Oval Office down to statehouses — to send aid worth at least half-a-billion dollars to India during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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‘Crisis averted’: Biden cheers debt ceiling deal in first Oval Office address

In his first Oval Office address, Biden boasts of debt-ceiling win

The address served as a victory lap for Democrat Joe Biden, who collaborated with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to forge the debt-ceiling bill last month.

US President Joe Biden’s first speech from the Oval Office focused on the bipartisan approval of the country’s debt-ceiling bill, during which he declared a “crisis averted” from his desk in the White House, reported Al Jazeera.

Biden said on Friday, “When I ran for President, I was told the days of bipartisanship were over, and that Democrats and Republicans can no longer work together,” adding, “But I refused to believe that.” The address served as a victory lap for Democratic Joe Biden, who collaborated with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to forge the debt-ceiling bill last month.

The Senate’s approval of the Bill on Thursday practically guarantees that the US will not default on its debt. The US Treasury had set a deadline of June 5 beyond which the federal government would most certainly have run out of money to pay its debts. The country was swiftly approaching that date.

The House of Representatives had earlier approved the measure on Wednesday by a vote of 314 to 117.

Biden explains in his address, “Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher. If we failed to reach an agreement on the budget, there were extreme voices threatening to take America – for the first time in our 247-year-history – into default on our national debt. Nothing, nothing would have been more irresponsible. Nothing would have been more catastrophic,” according to Al Jazeera.

Experts projected that if the US reached its USD 31.4 trillion debt ceiling, which represents the upper limit of the federal government’s borrowing authority, the economic repercussions may lead to a recession.

Businesses and people who rely on government funding may have seen their payments halted, and the US would have likely seen a decline in its credit rating and a spike in borrowing rates. According to the White House, 8 million Americans may have lost their employment as a result of a default.

The Senate’s 63-36 vote on Thursday, however, was not without controversy. Far-right Republicans criticised the bill for failing to provide a substantial boost to defence budgets and for failing to impose sharp enough cuts on discretionary government spending.

Democrats lamented the increased work requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP), as well as the expenditure limitations that are expected to damage social safety net projects, reported Al Jazeera.

Addressing such criticisms on Friday, Biden said, “No one got everything they wanted. But the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and economic collapse.”

McCarthy referred to the Senate’s approval of the debt-ceiling legislation as a “vote for the largest savings in American history.” It included clauses to recoup monies from the Internal Revenue Service, which is responsible for collecting taxes in the US, as well as leftover COVID relief funds.

The debt ceiling will be suspended by the 99-page law through 2025, allowing the government to spend as much as is required to meet its expenses up to that point.

The law will be signed by Biden on Saturday, two days before the deadline of June 5, Al Jazeera reported. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Modi to address US Congress for second time

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Modi to visit US in June, Biden to host state dinner

White House said the Prime Minister’s visit will “affirm the deep and close partnership between the United States and India and the warm bonds of family and friendship that link Americans and Indians together”, reports Asian Lite News

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on an official state visit to the United States on June 22. During his visit, PM Modi will be hosted by US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at a state dinner at the White House, the Ministry of External Affairs informed through a press statement on Wednesday.

The MEA statement further said the visit will underscore the growing importance of the strategic partnership between India and the United States, as the two nations are already collaborating across sectors. The leaders will have the opportunity to review strong bilateral cooperation in various areas of mutual interest, including technology, trade, industry, education, research, clean energy, defence, security, healthcare, and deepening people-to-people connections.

Prime Minister Modi and President Biden will also explore ways to strengthen India-US collaboration in plurilateral and multilateral fora, including in the G20. They would reflect on their shared vision for a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific and discuss opportunities to expand and consolidate the Quad engagement, the release stated further.

This historic visit offers a valuable opportunity for India and the US to further deepen a comprehensive and forward-looking global strategic partnership.

Meanwhile, a statement released by the White House read, “President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will host Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Republic of India for an Official State Visit to the United States, which will include a state dinner, on June 22, 2023.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington.

“The visit will strengthen the two countries’ shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific and our shared resolve to elevate our strategic technology partnership, including in defence, clean energy, and space,” the statement added.

“The leaders will discuss ways to further expand our educational exchanges and people-to-people ties, as well as our work together to confront common challenges from climate change, to workforce development and health security,” it stated further.

Earlier, PM Modi visited the United States on September 23, 2021.

In 2022, on the sidelines of the QUAD Leaders Summit, PM Modi and President Biden announced the India-US initiative of critical and emerging technology, known as iCET.

During the iCET launch, a new Implementation Arrangement between the Department of Science and Technology of India and the National Science Foundation of the US was signed by the Ambassador and NSF Director in the presence of Doval and Sullivan. (ANI)

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