'India's approach on warming important for US'

India's approach towards tackling global warming and simultaneously managing its energy needs is of concern to the United States not just on the question of environment, but also for its national security, Speaker of House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has said.

In her remarks on the recent visit of a Congressional delegation to India over the Easter Recess, Pelosi said she talked about global warming, its significance to American national security, to its environment, the economy and the preservation of earth with senior officials during the trip.

"In India, we were greeted at the highest level by the Prime Minister of India, in the non-profit sector by Dr RK Pachauri, who shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore, who guided us through what was happening in the sector in terms of renewable energy resources, bringing light to one billion Indians by using solar and other renewables," she said.

"We learned a lot on our trip. The purpose was to see how we could work together with India, a country with 400 million people who are without electricity, but nonetheless having a major responsibility as a rapidly developing country on this important issue. That is important, as I said, not only to our environment, but to our national security," the top Democrat leader said.

The US House Speaker also spoke of the events in Tibet which she said she had been following carefully over the last several days.

"As fate would have it, when we planned out trip, we really didn't realize what would be happening following March 10 in Tibet. We planned to visit His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to pay our respects to him, to join in his ongoing call for negotiations with the Chinese government for autonomy for Tibet," she said.

"Again, as the fate would have it, on March 10, the 49th anniversary of the Chinese driving His Holiness the Dalai Lama out of China, the protests there were met by a crackdown of the Chinese government, so we were there at a time when again, it was our fate to be there, and our fate to help," Pelosi said.

Urging Chinese government "to join" and "to sustain" negotiations with the Dalai Lama "for a peaceful outcome to what is happening in Tibet for their autonomy", she also asked the Communist giant to "immediately have independent outside monitors to review" recent Lhasa violence.

"The Chinese government is saying His Holiness is the instigator of violence -- here is a person who is the personification of non-violence. They must have medical care brought in for those who have been deprived of it, to free those in prison who have been arrested for peacefully protesting", she added.