REad the message if people can put me little guidelines and support I am ready to intiate a pulic interest litigation. I will do that if members support
Increase in nuclear facilities will create a local support infrastructure. There will be increase in knowlege as more people are trained to work in the new facilities. Some of the bright people might discover new processes and increase the technical knowledge in this area. The pressure is not one sided. Even US govt. will need to consider investments made by US companies. In the long run, this could bring more benefits
why we are still so naive about foreign policy. Our foreign policy should have one and only one objective how to make India strong. Once you are strong then you can amend rules that do not suit you and no one will dare say anything. We still believe in misplaced notion of fairness. Since the begining of life on this planet all the treaties were reinterpreded by the stronger party. Jiski lathi uski bhainse - don't link this with anarchy. Look at colonization history -- all European Powers bended, made or broke rules as and when it suited them. And more recently - USA. What was the justfication of invading IRAQ. The need of the hour is to make ourselves strong -- imagine every village turining into small manufacturing unit and villagers turning into enterprenauer. Once we achieve that than we can sit for 10 years to parse out why some clauses are not to be looked the way US is looking. I hope Dr. Singh is thinking like that. The only question that need to be asked to Mr. Sikri -- why 50 year have not been good enough to research and develop defence and critical resources needs indigenously.
continued from earlier. The crtics of the deal should not consider US as enemy. US is a formidable enemy, US is better as a friend or at least non-partisan in the face of repeated Chinese claims on Indian territories. Instead of focusing on nucelar energy India should focus on building solar, wind and hydro power. While west is still relying on fossile fuel, India can lead the non-nuclear green energy sector. India should also focus heavily on commerce and trade with US as US does with China. Building bombs does not buy respect from west. Only reason US is dealing with India is its market and economy period. India needs to focus more on education, health care and alleviating poverty instead of spending money to pay the bills of five-star accomodation of officials working on a bill of no material significance. Under the umbrella of a nuclear deal, India also should not allow the pakistan sponsored terrorism to provoke the muslim world. I hope prgamatic Indians influence the foreign policy and the politics for the emrgence of strong and self reliant India, posing no threat to any country without evil intensions. India has to strive to imress the world with its prowess of knowledge.
continued from earlier. The suspicion of US intentions are well qualified. US definitely thinks of its own interest and even India does that. India, being a democracy, sided with USSR because it was geopolitically closer than USA and US will definitely look at India with suspicion as it still does with Russia. US ignorance of the fact that Pakistan is the source of vicious terrorism against India and awarding Pakistan the major non-nato alliance status and the way it was done is enough evidence. I think this whole nuclear issue is more of simbolic message to China and the muslim world from US side. India's gain could be just the removal of isolation of India and end to snactions against India. Indian right wings should not compare the software prowess of India with core engineering technologies (except may be steel production, thanks to Mr.Mittal). They are right about India trying to find its own way. Having nuclear bombs are enough to deter Pakistan, Bangladesh and China for the time being. The supporters of the deal should stop name calling to the critics of the deal and realize that US influence is declining and India should deal with China independently.
continued from my previous comment...The people quit BARC due to lack of challenge and hindrence to serious indigenous research work and politics to the level of corruption. How can right wing people can be so assured about Indias fledgling nuclear ability when after developing rockets to send sattelites India still cannot produce a cruise missile. India is abandoning Akash, Nag and Trishul projects. Prithvi is effective only with a big payload due to its inaccuracy of hitting the target and Agni was a technology demonstrator by officials. In the west missile was developed first, that technology was extended to send rockets in the space. Anyway Indias uranium technology could be good enough for making bombs only because, there is no need to control the radiation and the chain reaction for a nuclear explosion but civilian nuclear power is a different story. I don't think (by the prevailing statistics and R&D of government laboratories) India will be able to master the thorium technology in next 50 years. Also don't forget India's corrupt politicians and burocrats like India to rely on foreign technology for the kick-backs from defence deals. Only gain could be acceptance in the west
I have seen only extreme views from both sides. I know some people who work in Indian nuclear establishment and I am in US. I think both sides are trying to think good for India (except may be Manmohan-Sonia and Bush-Rice). It is a known fact that only 15% of the energy need can be addressed by nuclear energy, it was stated long ago by a US based NRI energy expert. He stated that by simply improving the distribution netwrok the 15% energy gain can be achieved. The pollution from conventional energy source is a problem and a serious one, for India. That does not mean as claimed by Mr.Bush that nuclear energy is clean. Why then the french ship was prevented from being scrapped in Indian shore due to fear of radio active waste? How is India going to manage the waste? I have not seen a single statement on that. US itself is suffering for dumping the nuclear waste in the ground. India is no match in technology to developed countries like US or western Europe. Forget about thorium technology India cannot even handle Uranium technology. Most of the indeginous designs are based on archaic russian or french designs. Many people from BARC (bhaba atomic research center) quit.
People like Rajiv Sikri kept India backward all these years on some unfounded fear. Why is it that we are worrying over the impact of something we don't even have. We have non-working nuclear powerplants with the scientists working fulltime to prevent access to others so that the crap they produce is not evaluated by others. We have a missile scientist who sold his non-flying missiles so well that he has become the president. It's a small matter that of all the missiles produced by him only Prithvi still flies. Same with the nuclear establishment. A bunch of useless scientists whose only achievement till date has been to miss all targets which they have themselves set for themselves. Mr Sikri says, we stand to lose. We don't have uranium, whatever we have are bombs. Now if US is helping us setup new plants without disturbing existing ones, how does it matter? Do we want to support the same Iran which had supported Pakistan during our 71 war? Iran tried it's best to scuttle our deal by launching threats, etc. People like Sikri are playing into their hands. Does it matter to us if some CIA or other agency keeps tabs on our program? They anyway do so.
The main primary objective of this deal is to keep the rising oil prices under control, which both India and US know and understand very well. India is growing at a rate of 10% with demand for oil on the rise and US economy is heavily dependent on oil. Already oil prices have gone up to US$80 per barrel and US economy being the locomotive of world economy can't afford to help that price going upwards by not giving access to nuclear to a growing country like India. I guess all other strategic & geopolitical objectives are secondary. So considering this, the deal implementation is inevitable with both sides compromising for their economy growth on the upswing in the long term.
