Parliament must ratify the N-Deal - Left

Thou said noble for once !!!

For a long time, I've been writing about this, at last one political party (but it was left :( ) has called for a parliament debate and a constituitional amendment or a bill.
One can't just wake up on his left side in the morning, decide to screw up the country, go on signing up international treaties that will affect the strategic interests of the nation, lie about having the entire parliament is behind him on the deal and take a dig at the opposition leader in the foreign soil. Remember who ? It's none other than the Prime Minister himself. Shame on him for blatently lying when there is such an opposition even within the coalition he is leading.

Why Indian scientists are upset about the nuclear deal

It is still not too late for India to walk out of this deal citing the unreasonable terms and conditions of the deal. I've been of the view since the beginning that there should be full-scale debate in both the Parliament and by the scientific community (after all we've a scientist as President) and collectively make a decision on this. But the present Govt doesn't care either on the strategic interests or in protecting the national assets the scientists developed over the past 3 decades against all odds and sanctions.

If the deal goes through, India will be at the mercy of NSG (whether it is going to agree to the deal is another issue). There will be severe arm twisting on all directions - and India's foreign policy will be dictated by others. Maybe She will be asked to go even softer (or do nothing) even in handling its neighbor indulging in proxy war bleeding the Indian army and innocent citizens.

The deal doesn't do any good to the country and nuclear power generation is still not safe or fool proof. You can't run a country which is fast developing with nuclear power. What would happen if after we started using nuclear power heavily and one fine day the US or NSG got pissed off with some decision of India and stopped supplying the fuel ? Have these politicians and cabinets ever discussed about such a worst case scenario ?

India is rich in natural resources and the Sun is there throughtout the year. Instead of meekly submitting herself (which she didn't when there were sanctions on the atomic program for 30 years or more) to this deal, start investing in the alternative and conventional energy sources.


Dr A N Prasad's column on Rediff below:
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Dr A N Prasad, a former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, reveals why the Indian scientific community is worked up about the India-United States nuclear agreement.

The bill on the India-United States nuclear deal now with the US Congress has left no doubt about the US intention to achieve the twin objective of capping the Indian strategic programme and gaining near total access to its nuclear establishment through International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards inspections.

The sugar-coated language used in the July 18 India-US Joint Statement has lifted India to the status of an advanced State to be treated at par with other advanced States like the US. But the ground reality is such that the US calls the shots, leaving India on the defensive in spite of projecting the deal as of vital interest to the US.

There is certainly lot of apprehension among the Indian scientific community in general -- apart from top scientists within India's nuclear establishment who are forced to support the deal -- as to whether adequate homework has been done in analysing the pros and cons about how the deal serves India's long-term interests.

The views of Indian scientists do not seem to have reached Indian lawmakers and a clear direction is lacking. Political and scientific interests have to converge for a deal of this nature, which has long-term national security implications.

This matter is too serious for the government to take a decision without an in-depth debate, and in a hush-hush manner without revealing the various conditions involved. What the knowledgeable public in India is exposed to is bits and pieces of information -- that too, trickling from the US!

A major weakness faced by India, in the short and perhaps in the medium term, is the shortage of natural uranium required to push its nuclear power programme from the present 2 per cent to something respectable.

India seems to be paying a heavy price for this weakness. Having developed full technological competence in the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- in spite of sustained embargoes and restrictions -- it is not so much the technological know-how that India is looking forward to from abroad, as many seem to think, but a rightful place to play a global role in the nuclear field commercially and technologically.

There is so much that India can offer to the global effort for peaceful application of nuclear energy but it is a pity it is being looked upon with suspicion. Conditions of a different kind are being imposed while grudgingly taking India on as a partner.

Coming back to the bill in the Congress, there are a few clauses which are detrimental to Indian interests. It calls for India, Pakistan and China declaring a moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear explosive purposes. If India were to agree to this it will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis China in terms of stockpile and not serve national strategic interests.

Similarly, the bill talks about implementation of a treaty with the US as a partner banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. This is a big joke. While the US suffers from indigestion with excess fissile material, not knowing what to do with it, it wants India to prematurely shut shop. What a nice way to cap India's nuclear programme before it has even properly taken off! There are also some other conditions in the bill which tend to interfere with our independent national policy.

Perhaps the sticking point in this nuclear deal is the safeguards agreement. At present, the International Atomic Energy Agency has no format or mandate to negotiate an agreement with India which accommodates the country's strategic nuclear applications. The formats in force apply broadly to Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States party to the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty with some States accepting intrusive additional protocol.

India, Pakistan and Israel being non-NPT states are following item specific safeguards. As far as India is concerned, the deal will totally change this situation as it will be treated as a non Nuclear Weapon State with additional protocol leading to a lot of contradictions and difficulties both in the negotiations and later implementation.

It is very unlikely that the IAEA will negotiate a new agreement outside the existing mandate and go to the IAEA board of governors for approval which is a major task by itself. Realising this, the US bill has been cleverly worded to the effect that the American president's determination is required to the effect that an agreement has been concluded between India and the IAEA requiring the application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity in accordance with IAEA principles, practices and policies to India's nuclear facilities, materials and programmes.

To make matters worse, India's nuclear programmes are also sought to be brought under safeguards under the additional protocol. Where does this lead regarding the India- specific safeguards which India was elated about? There is no doubt that safeguards negotiations will be the toughest part of the deal requiring a high level of skill, foresight and care.

To a large extent, the deal will undermine the pride with which Indian nuclear scientists of the past and present developed highly complex nuclear technology under heavy odds. India will be slowly forced to become dependent on imports with practically the entire gamut of activities coming under safeguards inspection with a miniscule of activities left under the strategic category.

Will Tharoor's UN gain be India's loss?

Swapan Dasgupta's column on sify.com.

I agree with the author. It may not serve any good having an Indian as the UN secy general with India's current aspirations towards the security council and to become a global power. For anything that may happen in favor of India even if she deserves, he will be looked at with suspicion and the world will ask serious questions about his allegiance. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. As the author rightly pointed out, the convention is not to have a secy general from a country that has a stake in the security council.

But on the other hand, as Swapan pointed out, Tharoor already has some serious questions to answer. Is there going to be a parliament hearing for this nomination ? Doesn't his nomination have to be cleared by a concensus in the parliament ? Is it not the procedure or is it too much to ask ?
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Will Tharoor's UN gain be India's loss?
By Swapan Dasgupta

For a civilisation that is yet to fully overcome the disabilities of prolonged servitude, the importance attached to international recognition is exceptional.

Rabindranath Tagore was widely regarded as an accomplished upper class dilettante in Bengal until the Nobel Prize catapulted him into a national sage. Likewise, it was Dr S. Radhakrishnan 's election to a Fellowship at All Souls in Oxford that facilitated his scholastic deification at home and his eventual move to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Judged by these precedents, Shashi Tharoor 's curriculum vitae is, as yet, not all that awesome. A distinguished international bureaucrat who has served the United Nations all his working life and written novels and commentaries in his spare time, Tharoor has offered himself as a candidate for the post of UN Secretary-General. After months of quiet, behind-the-scenes lobbying, the UPA Government has signalled its decision to back his candidature, not least because convention deems that Kofi Annan 's successor should preferably be from Asia.

We are also informed that, in a bid to forge a national consensus, Tharoor has also succeeded in securing the backing of an extremely gullible BJP leadership. He, unfortunately, has not been able to secure the unequivocal backing of the CPI(M). The Left, for a change, appears to have asked all the right questions.

If Tharoor does indeed make it to the top UN job with India 's active backing, there is certain to be widespread jubilation in the country at yet another great Indian achievement. Regardless of the fact that he has lived overseas since the time he graduated from St Stephen 's College in 1975, Tharoor is in every respect an Indian, in the same way as Amartya Sen is. The Indian political class must not hold his non-resident status against him.

It is necessary, however, to introduce a caveat at this stage. The job that Tharoor seeks is no ordinary one. The present Secretary-General may have contributed more than his fair share to bringing the top job into some disrepute but the fact remains that the CEO of the UN is a position of exceptional importance. Along with the five permanent members of the Security Council, the UN is the sixth pillar of the global order. By listing his impressive career achievements, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman made it sound that Tharoor was bidding for membership of the Athenaeum Club or staking his claim to be President of Harvard University.

Important as these positions are, Kofi Annan's job is a league apart. To be fair, Tharoor has avoided playing to the gallery. He has said that, if elected, he would be an Indian Secretary-General but not India's Secretary-General. In other words, it would be unrealistic of India to expect him to do its bidding from New York. Shorn off diplomatic niceties, it is a proclamation that India will be sponsoring Tharoor but not its own man.

Detachment from national origin is imperative if Tharoor is to secure wider backing for his nomination. At the same time, the issue of neutrality prompts a larger question: if the beneficiary of the Tharoor campaign is only Tharoor, should India not look to its larger diplomatic interests? If Tharoor succeeds Annan, India 's claim to be made a permanent member of the UN is certain to be shelved for an indefinite period. It is an unwritten convention that the UN Secretary General is not from a country that has a stake in the Security Council.

Does the Government want India to jettison its Security Council claims to back a person who, despite being in a UN job, had never shied away from taking positions on domestic Indian politics?

Tharoor, for example, became a secular preacher during the Ayodhya movement. Those with long memories may like to recall the role of Annan 's secretariat in badgering India after the 1998 Pokhran-II blasts. Can Tharoor seriously deny that his neutrality was not impaired by his profound antipathy to the non-Congress Government that was in place between 1998 and 2004? Did Tharoor's certitudes determine Annan 's profoundly unhelpful attitude to India in this period? Tharoor 's right to hold strong opinions on Indian politics should not be denied. However, if he was fearless enough to express them while holding a UN job, what will he do if he is elevated to the UN Secretary-General's job? If the ruling arrangement in Delhi changes in the short-term, will Tharoor 's view of India remain as rosy?

It is understandable that a section of the Congress leadership is keen to reward Tharoor for his proximity to the stalwarts of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Tharoor, for example, once described the now-discredited former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh as an inspiration. He was also one of those who defended Sonia Gandhi during the "foreigner " controversy. All these stands call for recognition.

The question is: can this be done in a way that does not compromise India 's long-term strategic interests? As things stand, the prospect of a Tharoor victory is as compelling as Ecuador winning the FIFA World Cup. That, however, is not the point. What will be the collateral damage to India by persevering with someone's flight of whimsy?

Would it not be more prudent if the Congress Party took into account Tharoor's untenable position in a post-Annan dispensation and appointed him to the vacant post of External Affairs Minister? I get the feeling that events are moving in that direction. If nothing, it would establish the precedent that people need to be taken seriously at the age of 50.

Tharoor is a good Indian asset. Let us use him productively to benefit India. As for the Secretary-General's job, let India use its good offices to elect someone who can both win and be kindly disposed to India. As things stand, New Delhi seems hell-bent on making a fool of itself.

(Courtesy: Free Press Journal)

People in north and south India belong to the same gene pool: ICHR Chairman

A tight slap on the face of western Historians who tried to demean the Great civilization of this nation and those like Romila Thapar and those who play the dravidian politics.

Reservation: Break casteist formula to save the nation

M.V. Kamath's article on samachar.com. Very interesting - see Nehru and Rajiv's views on the reservation and Mandal issues. I would give the benefit of doubt to Nehru because he was on the ruling side. But Congress has been the most opportunistic party in India. This might have suited Rajiv as he was just supporting "from outside" VP Singh's govt., and he wanted to seize the opportunity the Mandal report provided as there was a big backlash all over the country (excluding few southern states). Today we have the Congress in power doing exactly same thing as VP Singh did.

Nonetheless, he said something against the dangerous Mandal thing and pulled down the Govt of VP Singh. I wonder how many current opposition parties including BJP had the guts to oppose when the Dec'05 parliament law was passed ?


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By M.V.Kamath

Both Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi are very busy persons and may not have much time to read old documents and hence this respectful attempt to help them out.

First, may one point out to a paragraph in a circular to the presidents of all Pradesh Congress Committees issued by none else than Jawaharlal Nehru, on 26 May 1954? That paragraph said: “In particular, we must fight whole-heartedly against those narrow divisions which have grown up in our country in the name of caste, which weaken the unity, solidarity and progress of the country....” When the British Government sought to give separate electorates to the Scheduled Castes, Gandhi went on a hunger strike that is old history now which ended in the Poona Pact in 1932.

Some seven and a half decades later, on 6th September 1990 Rajiv Gandhi made a similar, though not as sensational, effort to promote national unity in a speech in parliament criticizing the Mandal Report, lasting, to his eternal credit, some two and a half hours, Rajiv Gandhi, like the Mahatma before him, was not opposed to enabling the Scheduled Castes, make progress in all fields.

Addressing the Lok Sabha he said: “If you believe in a casteless society, every major step you take must be such that you move towards a casteless society. And you must avoid taking any step which takes you to a caste-ridden society.

Unfortunately, the step that we are taking today (accepting the Mandal Report), the manner in which it has been put, is a casteist formula. While accepting that is a reality, we must dilute that formula and break that formula by adding something on to it”.

Attacking the then Janata Prime Minister V. P. Singh whom he charged with not having the guts to stand up and say whether he believes in a casteless society or not, Rajiv Gandhi said: “This government is creating a vested interest in casteism and the country is going to pay a very high price for it”.

The Mandal Commission had recommended that “with a view to give better representation to certain backward sections of Other Backward Castes (OBCs) like Gaddis in Himachal Pradesh. Neo- Buddhists in Maharashtra,fishermen in the coastal areas, Gujjars in Jammu & Kashmir, areas of their concentration “may be carved out into separate constituencies at the time of delimitation”.

An angry Rajiv Gandhi shot out: “Does the government subscribe to the Mandal Commission view that political constituencies should be carved out on a caste basis? Are we going back to the Round Table Conference for having separate electorates? That was designed to break our country, Sir”. Warming up in his address, Rajiv Gandhi said that “even at this late hour (and this was in 1990) there is time to pull the country back from this caste division....Ministers are provoking caste wars”.

Continuing, he said: “The Raja Saheb’s (V. P. Singh’s) statement doesnot command wide acceptance in the country. They (the Ministers) have weakened our national fabric and to add to that, the Central Government, the Ministers, have deliberately provoked the caste confrontation and caste wars....”. Rajiv Gandhi said that “an issue like reservation cannot be treated in a piecemeal manner. We must look at the whole picture.”

He quoted Mandal himself who had said that “the aim is to overcome historical and geographical handicaps, not to create new vested interests” and admitting that “the categorisationA of backward classes has always been difficult”.

The concept of “Other Backward Castes” has always been a joke. Attacking the Mandal Report, Rajiv Gandhi has said: “I know for a fact that Reddys are included, Vakkaligas are included,Kammas are included, Lingayats are included, Gounders are included, Chettiyars are included.

Are these Backward Castes? Do they need help?” Mr Chidambaram was not around then but were he there, he would no doubt have had a good laugh.He would properly have been described as belonging to the OBCs.

Asked Rajiv Gandhi : “On what basis has the Mandal Commission defined caste? How has the Mandal Commission reinterpreted the Constitution and changed Backward Classes to Backward Caste?”

Rajiv Gandhi noted even the Mandal Commission Report had noted that of those whose views were sought on the reservation issue, only 28 per cent of the respondents favoured caste as the sole criterion and that nearly 70 per cent were in favour of evolving “multiple criteria based on social status, political influences, educational attainments, economic level, employment status” etc.

Even, according to Mandal, “most of the respondents who were OBCs have said that they do not want caste as the single definer...” Rajiv Gandhi reminded the Lok Sabha of an earlier Kakasaheb Kalelkar report which had said that the upliftment of the Backward Classes are extremely wideranging and comprehensive and covered such diverse fields as extensive land reforms, re-organisation of the economy, Bhoodaan Movement, development of livestock, dairy farming, cattle insurance, bee-keeping, piggeries, fisheries, developmentof rural and cottage industries, rural housing, public health, rural water supply, adult literacy, university education etc.

And for good measure he added: “Do we want the benefit that the Government is giving to be cornered by the Ministers or the sons of Ministers or the families thereof? Do we want the benefits that are being given by the Government to be cornered by big landlords and people who have a lot of property? Why do we not exclude the people with a certain number of properties from such benefits? Do we want these benefits to go to high senior Government officers who have already got that privilege?

The Government is aiming these benefits at a particularly privileged group and not looking at the really poor”. This is Rajiv Gandhi’s much-interrupted speech in summary. Rajiv Gandhi quoted V. P. Singh as having told a newspaper that implementation of the Mandal Commission Report “was purely a political strategy”.

And he went on to say: “Raja Saheb’s (V. P. Singh’s) policies are not very different from what the Britishers were doing. “It was the British who tried to divide our country on the basis of caste and religion and today it is Raja Sabheb sitting there, who is trying to divide our country on caste and religion... Already you are taking this country towards religious electorates. First you are dividing into reservations in jobs.

This government is taking the country in this direction”. Are you reading this, Soniaji? Are you reading this Dr Manmohan Singh? Kindly read the parliamentary proceeding in full, and carefully. Rajiv Gandhi believed in the unity of this country. Are you?

Send in your comments on this article to samachar_editor@sify.com
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Letter by IIT-K to the President of India

Portion of the strong letter sent by over 125 professors of IIT-Kanpur (from Times of India). Will it have any effect on the jokers in the Govt ? Only hope is the President. (Not sure if Supreme court can question the validity of this destructive law as the Parliament unanimously passed a legislation last year.)

We need a system in place in which such important decisions should be taken to the people of the nation in the form of a ballot and that it should get atleast 2/3rd of total votes in favor. Till then the fate is in the hands of a few just because they won an election.

On a side note, in TamilNadu which already has 60% reservation to various categories, there is a danger of this number going upto 87%.
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As members of an institution that is rated among the best technical universities, we are appalled by the proposed policy of caste-based reservation for OBCs. We believe that such a move at the present stage will be injurious to the IITs.

It will have devastating consequences to the culture of excellence cultivated over half-a-century by generations of dedicated and knowledgeable teachers and tens and thousands of brilliant students of all castes, creeds, linguistic and ethnic groups.

Most IIT Kanpur students overcame poverty, bad schools, many adverse circumstances to compete in a gruelling entrance examination for the right to be there. The admission is blind to caste and indeed to every other criterion except ability.

Thus the distinguishing mark of IIT students is not wealth, privilege or birth but dedication and talent. Into such an environment, introduction of privileges to only particular caste would be travesty.

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