Port of Spain, Nov 27 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his three-day visit to the Caribbean nation with a call to nearly a million persons of Indian origin in this region to be "active partners" in "a new India" and lauded overseas Indians for promoting Brand India.

"Today's India is on the move, just as the people of Indian origin are on the move. India is reaching out to the world with confidence and in a spirit of live and let live," Manmohan Singh told over 400 people at a reception organized in his honour at the grand Crowne Plaza hotel Thursday.

"In reaching out to People of Indian Origin, we are also reaching out to the world. You are, for millions of Indians, the most visible symbol of our own globalization," he said to ringing applause from Indo-Trinidadians who had gathered in large numbers to listen to the economist-turned-prime minister.

Manmohan Singh arrived in the Trinidadian capital Thursday afternoon on a three-day visit to attend the 53-nation Commonwealth summit that will be dominated by discussions on climate change. Trinidad and Tobago is home to around 500,000-strong Indian diaspora who comprise 42 per cent of 1.3 million population.

Lauding PIOs, with many them living in the Caribbean nation here for four generations, Manmohan Singh invited them to use new investment and business opportunities that India offers and asked them to proactively shape a new India.

"I invite you to be active partners of a new India and walk with us in finding new pathways of development and progress. I invite you to feel the love and affection of Mother India and feel the warmth of her embrace," he said.

Manmohan Singh showered praise on the PIOs for taking the lead in creating knowledge economy that has raised its global profile. "It is often said that the 21st century will be the knowledge century. Overseas Indians have played an extremely important role in global brand building in this respect," he said.

"If India is today viewed as a "knowledge economy" it is because of the reputation that people of Indian origin worldwide have earned through their creativity and diligence," he stressed.

White House dinner was magnificent, says Manmohan 

Port of Spain, Nov 27 (IANS) If US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle wanted to charm their Indian guests at the first state dinner of his presidency, they appear to have succeeded hugely. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was lavish in his praise of the White House banquet Tuesday, calling it "magnificent" and "one of the best dinners I have attended".

"It was a unique experience. The dinner was lavish and extravagant. The atmosphere and the layout was outstanding," Manmohan Singh said while sharing his first impressions of the state dinner with the Indian media after flying in from Washington Thursday.

Obama hosted the first state dinner of his presidency Tuesday night for Manmohan Singh at an elegantly designed white tent erected on the South Lawn of the White House that was attended by top Obama aides, powerful senators, Hollywood moguls, billionaire tycoons, and prominent Indian Americans. T

The grand and glamor-filled state dinner was choreographed to send the powerful message that the US saw India as an "indispensable partner" in handling global challenges of the 21st century.

"President Obama and his wife laid out one of the best dinners and went out of the way. The people who had come in and the gathering in itself is a statement," said Manmohan Singh, visibly impressed with all-out efforts by the Obama administration to put on an unforgettable show in Washington Tuesday.

"It was a great experience and I enjoyed being there. It was one of the best dinners that I have attended," he said.

"There was a gathering of many distinguished guests in the dinner. People who are eminent and form the crust of the society. It was a pleasure to meet them all and be in their company," said Manmohan Singh when asked what will be the lasting memory he will treasure from Tuesday's dinner.

"The dinner was magnificent and it was my pleasure to have attended the same. In the dinner there were a number of people of Indian origin who have made a mark on their own. A number of distinguished Indians who have done us proud,"

"This in itself is reflective of President Obama's personality. In this gathering of distinguished people, specially people of Indian origin, I felt proud to be an Indian," he said.

Among the prominent Indian-Americans who attended the power do were Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, Rajat Gupta of McKinsey fame, Vishakha Desai, president of Asia Society, Kamla Harris, district attorney of San Francis district, hotelier Sant Chatwal and Sonal Shah, an economist who heads Obama's office of social innovation.

Dinner menu for Manmohan spiced with typos 

Washington, Nov 27 (IANS) It was not just a gatecrashing couple that marred President Barack Obama's first state dinner Tuesday night in honour of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The New York Times found fault with the menu too - literally.

The special dinner menu - a lavish melange of Indian and American favourites as well as several excellent wines - was rife with typos, the influential daily said in its The Politics and Government blog.

The second course of the evening was paired, for example, with a delicious 2006 Brooks Riesling, which, the menu noted, was bottled in "Wilamette Valley, Oregon". According to the Times, the proper spelling is, "Willamette Valley".

For their third course, the 320 guests were offered a dish that, according to the menu, included potato dumplings with tomato chutney and "chick peas", which should in fact have been "chickpeas", it said.

That course, the menu noted, was paired with an excellent red wine, a "2007 Granache" from Beckmen Vineyards. The correct spelling of the popular varietal, one of the most widely planted types of red grape in the world, is actually "Grenache" with only one "a" not two.

The last bottle of the night was equally impressive, a sparkling chardonnay from Virginia. It was listed as a "Thibaut Janisson Brut", missing a hyphen between the first two words.

And the dessert included, according to the menu, passion fruit and vanilla "Gelees", the French word for "gelled", which, when written correctly, includes an acute accent on the second "e", the Times said.

Will Manmohan Singh influence Obama's Afghan strategy?

Washington, Nov 27 (IANS) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assertive counsel to stay the course in Afghanistan or risk "catastrophic consequences" under an emboldened Taliban could play a decisive role in President Barack Obama's final determination about his new strategy in the region.

It is more than likely that the prime minister's warning in his interviews preceding the just concluded state visit here was a carefully calibrated move to ensure that the Obama administration seriously factors in India's views in their long-term strategy.

In an interview with Newsweek, Singh said, "A victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would have catastrophic consequences for the world, particularly for South Asia, for Central Asia, for the Middle East. Religious fundamentalism in the '80s was used to defeat the Soviet Union. If this same group of people that defeated the Soviet Union now defeats the other major power [America], this would embolden them in a manner which could have catastrophic consequences for the world at large."

He followed that up with this comment during his interactions with policy wonks at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "The road to peace on Afghanistan will be long and hard. But given the high stakes involved, the commitment of the international community must be sustained by firm resolve and unity of purpose," he said.

The comments could have well come from some hardliners in the Republican Party, including perhaps even former vice president Dick Cheney, who has been a strident critic of what he calls the new president's "dithering" on Afghanistan. In that sense Manmohan Singh's standpoint unwittingly converged with some of Obama's most vehement detractors and against his core constituency of liberal Democrats who want him to withdraw from the country at the earliest.

In a city where a serious policy can start off with a rumor here and a speculation there, there was some talk of whether the Indian side was in a sense encouraged to take a tough approach over Afghanistan so as to facilitate the president's break from his earlier approach with relatively manageable political risk. One comment among those hanging around at Hotel Willard, where Manmohan Singh stayed, went something like this: "If an independent and respectable figure like Dr. Singh were to make the case in support of staying the course in Afghanistan, it might help President Obama to present the case with greater credibility to his skeptical liberal constituents. To that extent Manmohan Singh is an ideal stakeholder to push for staying the course."

Not that there was any obvious connection but during his joint news conference with Manmohan Singh, Obama said "After eight years - some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done - it is my intention to finish the job". This was followed by reports quoting his aides that he would probably add 30,000 more troops.

This ought to have been music to the Indian ears, especially because New Delhi has gone out on a limb in Afghanistan having invested over a billion dollars in reconstruction. If the Obama strategy is going to be aimed at ensuring long-term stability by engaging in large-scale reconstruction of a new Afghan state, then India's role is going to be crucial.

There is growing realization in Washington about the constructive influence of India in Afghanistan even as there are strong voices of apprehensions that disapprove of it. Washington has to be sensitive to Pakistan's vociferous rejection of any decisive presence of India in Afghanistan. Many in Pakistan have already advanced the familiar argument of being squeezed in by India from two sides. From the Indian standpoint, it is a region it must not let itself be eased out of. There are specific geostrategic reasons for India to be part of Afghanistan's present and future.

The prime minister did try to address Pakistan's concern during his address at the CFR saying, "We do not see Afghanistan as a theatre of influence. Our interest is in building a region of peace and stability."

While that may be completely true it does not necessarily reveal the full measure of India's interest.

Gatecrashers steal limelight from Manmohan's state visit 

Washington, Nov 27 (IANS) First the dinner and now the party crashers -- stealing the spotlight from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's just ended state visit, the US media is agog with how an American couple gatecrashed US President Barack Obama's dinner at the White House and what might have happened.

Politico, which focuses on the Washington political scene, turned its attention to how the alleged crasher couple at Obama's Tuesday night dinner in honour of Manmohan Singh "were being filmed by a camera crew for a reality television show as they prepared for their headline-grabbing caper".

The Bravo television network, which airs the "Real Housewives" series, confirmed Thursday that Michaele and Tareq Salahi were being followed by cameras from producers of the series on the same day the couple made it into the White House, but were not present for their entry.

"The cast of 'The Real Housewives of D.C.' has not been finalised," Bravo said in a statement to the New York Times. "Michaele Salahi is under consideration as a cast member, as such Half Yard Productions were filming the Salahis on that day. Half Yard was only aware that as per the Salahis they had been invited as guests."

A White House official, informed of Bravo's statement, said that was not the case. "We've already confirmed that they weren't invited," he was quoted as saying by the influential daily in a report running close to 1,200 words.

The Times said Secret Service had begun an inquiry into how the Salahis slipped past multiple layers of high-level White House security Tuesday night and managed to rub shoulders, literally, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Oscar winner composer A.R. Rahman and Pepsico's Indian American CEO Indra Nooyi among others.

Peter T. King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, called for a Congressional investigation. He said in an interview with the New York Times Thursday that he was shocked at the lack of security at the White House on Tuesday night. Since 2003, the Secret Service has been part of the Department of Homeland Security.

"Obviously, somebody dropped the ball," King was cited as saying. "I mean, you're talking about the president of the United States and the vice president and a powerful world leader, the prime minister of India."

"The fact they went through the magnometer is incidental," he said. "They could have had anthrax on them. They could have grabbed a knife from the dining room table." He added: "The next time it will be a far worse reality than a reality TV show."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post, which first wrote the story, in a 1,850 word report said the Salahis also seem to have staked out prime locations during President Obama's inauguration weekend, posting photos on Facebook that purportedly show them in the first family's glass-enclosed viewing area after a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

Michaele Salahi spent nearly eight hours before the state dinner in a Georgetown salon setting, getting groomed for her big night out at the White House, though mostly getting filmed getting groomed, it said citing the CEO of Erwin Gomez Salon Thursday.

"It was a lot of schmoozing with the staff," said Packard-Gomez, explaining why a hair and makeup session lasted from nearly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., extended by the crew's multiple takes and interviews with Salahi and the stylists. The talk of the day was Salahi's impending trip to the state dinner.

CNN trawled through court records to find the couple named in at least 16 different civil suits in Fauquier County, sometimes as plaintiffs, sometimes as defendants. The Salahis, it said, had left an extensive paper trail in federal bankruptcy and state court filings.

But the couple at the centre of the storm themselves remained silent. "Their counsel, Paul W. Gardner Esq., states emphatically that the Salahis' did not 'crash' this event. We look forward to setting the record straight very soon," their publicist Mahogany Jones told CNN.