Thursday, December 13, 2007

Indo-US Nuclear Deal (2)

Now that the leftist bloc in the Indian Parliament has agreed to India’s having negotiations with I A E A, the cat is out of the bag. The leftists were never in earnest while protesting against the Indo-US Nuclear Deal (read Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by another name); it was only to make a show of their anti-US stance and to heckle the Government of India so as to get the benefit of their silence and non-action in the Nandigram carnage which has been equated to the Godhra killings by the National Human Rights Comission.
The fact that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal will curb India’s capacity for developing Nuclear weapons suits the communists because then the only nuclear power in this part of the globe will be the Communist China. This probably was the ultimate intention of the Left lobby all along.
Prof D. Basu (Professor in International Economics in a University in Japan) brings out the salient points in the Indo-US deal when he points out the following through facts and figures in a two-part article in The Statesman:

For his two part article See (for Part I ) http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2007-11-18&usrsess=1&clid=3&id=204094
For Part II
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2007-11-19&usrsess=3388174461038&clid=3&id=204211

(1) The Deal has very little to do with India’s power generation; nuclear power contributes about 2 per cent of the current electricity generation in the country;
(2) India is going to buy second-hand nuclear reactors from the USA at an exorbitant cost; cost of power per unit will be doubled;
(3) The Indo-US deal is a way of getting around India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, because the Deal is sealed, the I A E A will be allowed to inspect 90 per cent of our nuclear installations. In fact the capability of India to develop nuclear power – civilian or military, will be totally curbed by the I A E A (read, USA). Entry of the I A E A is the worst thing that can happen to India’s nuclear research
(4) The Deal will not allow India to use its own fast-breed reactors. Whereas Pakistan will receive nuclear weapons, technology and fuel from China.
(5) India’s nuclear weapons programme will be terminated. This is the real objective of the Deal

Here is something more:

The Prime Minister claims that the 123 agreement doesn’t deprive India the right to nuclear testing. This is the truth but not the whole truth, because Section 110 of the Hyde Act limits the yield (energy release) of the test to a mere 1 lb (one pound)-equivalent of TNT for India, whereas it is 1000 tons-equivalent of TNT for China.

That is where we stand after having signed the 123-agreement with the USA.
Are we not digging our own grave?

3 Comments:

Blogger Sanatanan said...

Dear Professor Sen,

You may perhaps like to peruse the article "India and the Bush doctrine" (http://sanatanan.blogspot.com/2007/09/india-and-bush-doctrine_6698.html) which highlights some of the reasons as to why India should walk away from this deal.

As a science-person, you may be interested to look through the two subsequent articles (Assignments 1 and 2) too, at the same site.

Regards
Sanatanan

2:38 am  
Blogger SENsible said...

Dear Sanatanam,
I like your comment and the article which I have saved. It is very knowledgable and informative. I fail to understand what prompted our nuclear scientists to agree to this Deal. Is it a stick and carrot business?
Thanks.
Sensible.

4:26 pm  
Blogger Economicus said...

I am just trying to understand why Indians would want to keep nuclear weapons WITHOUT the nuclear power (electricity) option when Indians can keep the nuclear weapons WITH the nuclear power options.

The argument that India will get old technology is not true. More importantly India does not have enough uranium and will not get any more legally without the deal. This will place a bottleneck on Indian growth and the enormous strides made in poverty reduction. But the Left will not want that -- who will vote for them then!

10:42 pm  

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