The article is timely, and logical too. In an enlightened democracy the parliament is the representative of the people and the ultimate stakeholder of the nation. It devolves on the Govt of the day to seek the approval of the parliament for any decision concerning the entire nation and its people as well as to something that would in someway bind the country's future generations. If this precept is true for the US then it is true for India whether the constitution says so or not. The point about enforcement of the promises holds for us not only in our compliance but also with regards to safeguards in case the other signatory desists. Without this reciprocity all such agreements would turn out to be one sided in nature and would not serve the national interests ultimately. If this means timely floor management then it ought to be done otherwise the next Govt of the opposition can renege on the agreement and finally bring disrepute to our national decision making process,generally.
Indian parliment must decide just the way US parliment did.. in fact we must go a step further and tell what must be removed and add our clauses for US
In the worst case scenario, we can imagine the outcome if decision making of complex calculations in ISRO/DRDO/DAE will be done in a democratic way. Democracy is good only if the selected population qualify bare minimum criteria for the decision making capability. So the first task should be to reform the structure of Parliament by having Professional, Educated, Nationalistic people on board. Then only the Parliament can decide on all important matters.
Hi, I must congratulate you on raising the issue of Role of Parliament in foreign policy matter. Yes, I agree that Parliament should play an important decision making role in not only foreign policies but in all important domestic matters as well. But to be very frank, it is too early for this kind of resolution by Parliament given the current structure of Parliament and the background of Parliamentarians. Parliament is full of corrupt, criminal, inept, opportunistic, greedy, educationally backward people. These people don't have any sense in any issues apart from how much they will be getting and about their votebank. Yes, there are quite a few visionary intellectuals but they don't enjoy decision making role. Desicion in Parliament are made purely from democratic perspective. It will be worst thing if the Parliament has been granted decision making role in its current form. Instead, it is quite better, if the policy matters are decided by few handful leaders and bureaucrats. Based on recent examples of Office of Profit bill, Quota bill etc we can realize that up to what extent these greedy Parliamentarians can push the policies and twist the constitutional rules in their favor.
There is no need to accept anything less than Full consensus and monitoring by Parliament on this issue -niceties be damned. Since when did national interest take a back seat to an individual's foolish self-pride? If Manmohan Singh has to eat his words, so be it. Same goes for POTA (or a modified version of it if UPA has concerns) by the way. What further catastrophy are UPA and all those morose State Governments like AP, UP, Karnataka, West Bengal etc. waiting for, to correct the legal framework to deal with Terrorists? Where is the legal action behind the beating of the chest on Independence Day? The UPA has been consistenly acting like the proverbial "playing the fiddle while India Burns".. don't they have a sense of governance? Does Dr. Singh really think that the nation does not see him to be the paper tiger he is, with no bite and no follow up on his own words?
I am not sure our Babus and their masters are even interested in any of these things written in this article. They come to parliament to stuff their pockets, not to mentions most of them have enough money buy 10 US senators. Here a campaign contribution of $10k becomes big news.
Also as public we could and more of this ingredient called suspicion about government.
The whole issue has been shrouded in unwanted secrecy and apparently, the Manmohan Singh government has not taken the supreme body of the country VIZ. the Indian Parliament in cofidence. Being a democracy, the public should also be made aware of the contents and a healthy debate should then ensue.
The Creme De La Creme of this country-The Nuclear Scientists are very much divided on this issue and their opinions must be taken into account before signing the deal.
Apparently, the U.S. Congress seems hell bent on changing the deal from its original form and needless to say this may compromise India's position.
Manmohan Singh appears in a great hurry to sign maybe because he feels it will earn him the NOBEL PEACE prize and that he will go down in the annals of history as a great international statesman.I think the country's independence and security should override all the other considerations Let us not have U S bulldoze us into signing the agreement in its changed version. Our scientists have given their blood, sweat and tears for achieving the nuclear status we have against all possible odds. Let their efforts not go down the drain. lets Be careful of the U. S. A.
Sir, are you not asking for too much? We have a Prime Minister who has not been elected by the people. We have a de facto head of the country who is not even of this country. We have as our ruling party, a party which swears mortified sycophancy. We have in our opposition, a party which swears by the ideology of a hostile nation. We have in our opposition, another party which is more interested in speaking for the corrupt. And we have as our activists, breast beating celebrities whose activism starts and ends with protests aginstperceived oppression of terrorists. Are you then, not asking for too much?
Why is the UPA trying to push the deal without having taken the nation into confidance. Or is there something that they dont wants us to know. With the key players being hand picked by the PM who are US sympetizers is a dangerous game the UPA is playing with the nation. The US congress and the senate rightly placed their interest in the deal. But it would only mean that India's interst would have been diluted to a great extent. I think we should scrap this deal if it is not on fair terms. And the rational of the US to take us away from middle east oil dependency is also right. As we suffer with the jihadi money that gets poured into the terror groups through maddras and so called welfare groups.
