Alliance Adultery

Alliance Adultery


Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 23


Palash Biswas





LONDON: Biman Bose, one of India's most influential Marxist leaders, has said that the Left can consider supporting a BJP-led coalition if that party sheds what he called its "communal agenda".

In surprising remarks made in London Thursday, he also said the Left may have made "a mistake" by not withdrawing its support from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government earlier and accused the Congress of trying to "bail out" the Republican Party through the nuclear deal ahead of US elections.

Bose, one of the most senior leaders in West Bengal and a member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) politburo, made his startling remarks while briefing a select group of British diplomats, bankers, and government and Commonwealth officials over dinner in London Thursday night. IANS was the only Indian media group invited to this meeting.

The dinner was hosted by industrialist Shishir Bajoria of the Kolkata-based multinational, Bajoria Group. Bose, who is general secretary of the West Bengal CPI-M, was asked pointedly if there were any circumstances under which the Left would support a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition in New Delhi.

"The Left never subscribed to the communal politics of the BJP. That does not mean the BJP all the time did only mischief. It does not mean that. But the BJP could not leave its communal agenda," Bose said.

"If it happens that the BJP is opposing communal politics, then the real stand will be clarified. Whether the BJP is more dangerous than the Congress or the other way round depends on some distinct political twists and turns, and parties' principles can be judged only in those twists and turns, not in normal conditions.

"So wait for some days - or some years - to see those twists and turns. "If the BJP moves with the same politics with which they are moving today, the question (of supporting the BJP) doesn't arise at all," he added.

Asked if the CPI-M wanted the BJP to support a common minimum programme, Bose stressed the importance of secularism.
"They are to cut religion and politics. They mix up religion and politics. Religion should remain in temples, churches and mosques or in gurdwaras. That should be the private belief of the person concerned. Religion should not be mixed up with politics," he replied.

Earlier, speaking exclusively to media, Bose said that when it came to the post-election scenario, the Left would support a Congress-led coalition "if the Congress has learnt their lesson".

"They have to bring down inflation, and introduce a universal public distribution system, and universal and free health and education."

Bose said real inflation in India was over 12 per cent and could "touch 13 or 14 per cent this year". Bose, wearing a formal Bengali dhoti in a roomful of men and women in dark business suits, hinted at a larger, global reason behind the Left's withdrawal of support to the government over the India-US nuclear deal.

"The (popularity) rating of George W. Bush in the US has gone down to 28 per cent. This has never happened before in history. The lowest used to be 38 per cent - now it is 28 per cent," he told his audience.

"In that political scenario, the government of India is going to bail out George W. Bush by signing the nuclear agreement," he said, adding that nuclear energy would account for only eight percent of India's energy needs.

Asked why the Left had not withdrawn support earlier, Bose replied: "There you might blame the Left parties."
He said the Left held back because the UPA government did implement some parts of the Common Minimum Programme, such as the non-privatisation of public sector units known as the Navaratna that he said had laid the foundation for independent India.

Meanwhile, Bose's CPI-M politburo colleague Sitaram Yechury left London Thursday after a three-day visit at the invitation of the British foreign office.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/Left_may_support_BJP_if_it_sheds_religion_from_politics/articleshow/3223136.cms


Sleeping with Enemy is quite in Vogue in India and it is never considered as a case of adultery. Political Adultery is justified on every occasion. in war and in peace!



India does not expect any problem in the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group over getting approvals and exemptions necessary to take forward its nuclear deal with the US and has the powerful G-8 "on board" over the issue.



Indo US Nuke deal drama targeted to Resurrection Hindutva as Superpower Indian Hindu Nation aligned with Zionist White Apartheid Corporate US Imperialism is at its best a classic example of alliance story where the marriage ends formally , but Copulation without any accountability continues for ever. The Left right politicians have always been the best players of such Bedroom Board room games!

Rising inflation, weak industrial output, renewed surge in crude oil prices, disappointing quarterly numbers and guidance from technology bellwether Infosys Technologies.... the list of bad news seemed endless.

Foreign institutional investors net buying Rs 934 crore worth of shares was the only silver lining to the dark clouds over the Dalal Street. Still, that was not enough to prevent the 30-share Sensex sliding 456.39 points or 3.3% to close at 13,469.85. Bulls tried to fight back, taking the index above the psychological 14,000-mark briefly during the day. But in the end, the torrent of negative newsflow proved too much for them.

The key indices Sensex and Nifty ended the week in positive amid various negative factors. Disappointing industrial data, soaring inflation as well as global crude oil prices and IT giant Infosys Technologies result weighed on the market sentiments erasing major part of the week`s gains.

The Indian barometer breached psychological mark of 14K at mid-week, but failed to maintain the level due to uncertain political conditions.

The Sensex ended the week at 13,469.85, with a marginal gain of 15.85 points, or 0.12% from last weekend`s close. The 50-share Nifty gained 33.00 points, or 0.82% to end the week at 4,049.00 from last week close of 4,016.00.


Indian Media also inherits the Mythomania Sexmania crimemania as we see in Arushi case!



Marxist have been the Super Stars of Coalition politics since general election, 1967. It is all about clear cut Opportunism, Ideological deviation, Power Politics, Economism, Defection, Black mailing and brgaining. Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet have been an alliance of Grand slams all the way. But the Historical Blunder as termed by no one else but Jyoti Basu himself made them fail at a critical turning point of Indian Nation while CPIM pulled Basu from the Projected ivory Tower of the status of prime Minister of India. But the jugglery of anti Imperialism and anti Fascism got them to ensure a Solid Unbreakable En Block Vote bank of Muslims which further enabled them to hold power for the Brahminical hegemony in west Bengal. The coalition called left front is nothing but a pure Brahman front which denies life and liberty for all the indigenous communities, eighty five percent of the population, in West Bengal. Three percent Brahmans enjoy Hegemony in every sphere of life thanks to Marxist Ideology and the Pragmatic politics of Basu and company. Not Even all Brahmans have the privilege to taste Power,maximum one hundred or two hundred Brahman Families captured every field in Bengal. SC, ST and OBC with minority Muslims could not hold ground despite Nandigram and Singur insurrection as the Mass mobilisation was hijacked by the Brahman dominated so called civil society equipped with Media.

Four years of Marxist finger-wagging have made many of us forget how national politics has operated after the Congress ceased to be a natural winner.



The Bengali Barhmins Buddhadeb, Pranab Mukherjee, Somnath Chatterjee and Sunil Gango played the Coalition game and indulged in full political adultery hubnubing with RSS. Anti communal marxists tried their best to annihilate Muslims every time and cried foul elsewhere, say Gujarat or Mumbai.It withdrew support from the UPA government in which they had been Bed partners all these years, quoting anti Imperialism agenda while running blindly on the capitalist Imperialist corporate MNC Builder Promoter Highway with Brand Buddha and Grass root level gestapo.



Media highlights the so called divide amongst the Communists, which is nothing but a well planned strategy of Got UP Power game to dodge the public as well as rivals!



The Left seems to be divided on the question of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and also on whether it should be seen as the one responsible for bring down the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government.


Sources have told CNN-IBN that Chatterjee is likely to put in his papers early next week just days ahead of the UPA Government facing a Vote of Confidence in Lok Sabha.


Chatterjee's position has become embarrassing with his party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), including his name in the list of 60 MPs who are to vote against the Congress-led Government when the trust vote is conducted in Parliament on July 22.


But CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat has said that the party has not taken any decision yet to ask him to quit the Speaker's post.


Chatterjee's Lok Sabha office issued a press release earlier in the week saying that the Speaker didn't want any speculation on his quitting office.



Basu insists to save the Government, karat does not Oblige.



But Karat is not committed whether the LEFT with would join the UPA all over once again while the LEFT Partner CPI has hinted meanwhile that it would.



Have the Brahman Marxists any ground to stand against US Corporate Imperialism while the LEFT Front government has done everything to ensure the Sovereignty of Global Market, IT, Free flow of Foreign capital and multi national retail Network with all round drive for SEZ, Chemical Hub, Privatisation of all public services including basic needs of the people medical Health, Education, Infrastructure, Food, employment, Industrial and Agro production, Urbanisation, indiscriminate land aquisition in favour of the MNCs, Nuclear plant in Haripur?

Have they any ethical ground to cite anti communalism while Buddha befriends Lal Krishna Adwani and speaks the language branded for RSS, supports the State Power to kill the constitution and laa kind of anti people communal legislation including SEZ act, Citizenship amendment act, revising all welfare laws and constitutional guarantees for Indigenous communities including the Minorities?



With the political decks cleared for taking the India-US nuclear deal forward and elections looming on the horizon, the government has launched a publicity blitz by taking out full-page advertisements in leading newspapers in support of the deal.After the decisive push from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to approach the IAEA board for approving an India-specific safeguards agreement, the government has finally shed its defensive attitude and is going all out to convert the sceptics and win popular mandate for the deal, which it considers is in the supreme national interest.



The advertisement in leading dailies, including The Indian Express and Hindustan Times , shows a smiling Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi waving jubilantly at pulling off the deal. The government lost the Left parties' outside support after it pushed for the deal and will now face a trust vote in parliament on July 22.

The ad carries an endorsement from none other than Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, a key interlocutor in the nuclear deal, who is quoted as saying: "If we don't do it now, history will not forgive us."

The ad also cites the manifold benefits the nuclear deal will bring to a fast developing but energy-starved India, especially in the context of escalating oil prices.

Giving a patriotic spin to rally support for the contentious deal, the advertisement says: "The nation now needs to unite and support the government for the economic growth and better future of the country."

The advertisement is probably the first attempt by the government to reach out to the people to pre-empt the move by the communist parties to make the deal a major issue in the next general elections.

Terming nuclear energy as the "most efficient, environmentally cleanest and safe source of energy", the advertisement says it produces more energy than any other source.

The advertisement has been brought out by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to project the deal as primarily an energy issue that will spur economic growth of the country, and to rebut the charge of the Left that the deal allegedly aims at drawing India into a strategic alliance with the US.



Kerala is one of the most politically conscious state in India. Politics and Cinema dominate the entire discussion arena. Kerala produced the first Communist Government in India through ballot and was the forerunner in coalition politics in India. Polling percentages in excess of 90 percent are common here.



The political mass is divided among two camps from 1950 onwards, the left of the centre parties, headed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Centrist alliance dominated by Congress (I). The LDF camp comprises of Communist Party of India-CPI, Kerala Congress (Joseph)- KC (J), Revolutionary Socialist Party- RSP, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Janata Dal (United)- JD (U).

The United Democratic Front (UDF) cohabitants are Muslim League, Kerala Congress (Mani)- KC (M), Kerala Congress (Jacob), Revolutionary Socialist Party (Bolshevik)-RSP (B), Kerala Congress (B)- KC (B) and Communist Marxist Party- CMP. The right of the centre parties consisting of communal entities are yet to spread its tentacles in Kerala.

In provincial elections held in several states in late 2003, the BJP registered impressive triumphs and the party leadership was led into thinking that, in calling for early elections, it could consolidate its gains with a magisterial showing in national elections. The BJP waged a campaign on the slogan of “India Shining”, trumpeting the emergence of India as a major power. However, the Indian electorate once again showed that it was not to be taken for granted, and the BJP and its allies lost to a coalition headed by the Congress party. [See India’s Moment: Elections 2004.] The Fourteenth Lok Sabha convened on 17 May 2004 and Manmohan Singh (1932-) assumed the office of the Prime Minister at the head of what is known as the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government. The UPA is supported by the Left Front, a coalition of parties headed by the CPM, or the Communist Party of India (Marxist).



United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is the name of the present ruling coalition of political parties of the Government of India. The UPA was formed soon after the 2004 general elections to the Lok Sabha, determining the composition of the 14th Lok Sabha. An informal alliance had existed prior to the elections as several of the current constituent parties had developed seat-sharing agreements in many states. However it was only after the election results were announced and it became evident that the rival BJP led coalition was not in a position to head the government that the alliance started taking shape. Initially, the proposed name for the alliance was the Secular Progressive Alliance.



The UPA's policies are defined through a common minimum programme and the alliance is generally perceived as a center-left coalition dominated by the Indian National Congress whose president Sonia Gandhi is its chairperson.



In the state of Jharkhand, the constituents of the UPA are by mutual agreement supporting the government led by an independent politician, Madhu Koda.



"With the replacement of the Dominant Party System of India, minority and/or coalition governments in New Delhi have become the order of the day. Except for the Congress Minority Government of P.V. Narsimha Rao and National Democratic Alliance Government of Atal Behari Vajpayee, all such governments since 1989 have been unstable. Yet instability apart, coalition governments have been effective in enhancing democratic legitimacy, representativeness and national unity. Major policy shifts like neo-liberal economic reforms, federal decentring, and grass roots decentralization, in theory or practice, are largely attributable to the onset of federal coalitional governance. Coalition governments in states and at the centre have also facilitated gradual transition of the Marxist-left and the Hindu-right into the political establishment, and thus contributed to the integration of the party system as well as the nation. The same major national parties which initially rejected the idea of coalition politics have today accepted it and are maturing into skilled and virtuoso performers at the game.

In a rather short span of over a decade, India has witnessed coalition governments of three major muted hues: (a) middle-of-the-road Centrist Congress Minority Government of P.V. Narsimha Rao, going against its Left Centre of reputation, initiated neo-liberal economic reforms in 1991; (b) three Left-of-centre governments formed by the Janata-Dal-led National/United Front; and (c) two Right-of-Centre coalition governments formed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance under Atal Behari Vajpayee, a votary of secular version of Hindu nationalism.

In the wake of the decline of Congress Dominance, the fragmentation of the National Party System and the emergence of party systems at the regional level have turned India into a chequered federal chessboard. The past and likely future patterns of coalition governments in New Delhi are suggestive of at least three models of power sharing: (a) coalition of more or less equal partners, e.g. the National Front and the United Front, (b) coalition of relatively smaller parties led by a major party, e.g. National Democratic Alliance; and (c) coalition of relatively smaller parties facilitated but not necessarily led by a prime minister from the major party, e.g. the coalition of parties formed in 2004 around the Indian National Congress, avowing secular Indian Nationalism.




People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vol. XXXI
No. 29

July 22, 2007


PROMODE DASGUPTA MEMORIAL LECTURE



The Present And Future Of Coalition Politics Belongs To The Left





Biman Basu addressing a gathering on 'Future of Coalition politics in India'



THE slogan ‘struggle-unity-struggle’ that the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov declared as essential for bringing together the communists and Left with the mass of the working people, was cited by Biman Basu as an example of the dynamics of coalition politics in Bengal.



Biman Basu stressed that the Left that must take the leadership in building up waves of democratic movements in the country. The Left must strengthen its base continuously and nationwide, by expanding the horizon and ambit of the democratic movements and struggles while carrying forth the class struggle, above the surface or at the subterranean level.



It was around this basic tenet that he weaved his arguments while addressing a packed gathering on the ‘Future of coalition politics in India.’ The venue was the Promode Dasgupta Bhavan in Kolkata. Biman Basu stressed repeatedly how the CPI(M) and the Left must go beyond Bengal to spread the democratic movement and to do this they must augment and expand their organisational base in a large way.



Based on the widening democratic movement, the Left must build up a coalition / front that would be a real alternative to the coalitions being set up by the forces of reaction led by the big bourgeois and the big landlords. The alternative coalition shall look to the interests of the common people just as the coalition of the forces of reaction and their lackeys serve the interests of the capitalists, the zamindars, the affluent, and the merchants.



Four Left parties, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the Forward Bloc, and the Revolutionary Socialist Party are already working at the national level through close coordination so that the Left can play a bigger and more significant role on the national plane, pointed out Biman Basu.



POLITICAL SCENE IN BENGAL



Turning to the political scene in Bengal where a ruling Left Front has been in office for the past three decades, Biman Basu said that all the constituent parties of the Left Front must abide by decisions and resolutions taken by the Bengal Left Front and by the cabinet of the Bengal Left Front government. A constituent partner of the Bengal LF may well have difference of opinion or view in a certain issue or issues. The difference of opinion should be amicably resolved through mutual discussion within the LF and not outside of it. It is observed nonetheless that some of the LF parties would not deign to follow uniformly the decisions arrived at some issue or the other at the LF meetings and at the LF cabinet of ministers. The CPI(M) is never found involved with any effort to create hatred and animosity against any LF constituents. Those who are in the vanguard of the Left movement in India should scrupulously refrain from maligning one another, and try to fulfil the historical tasks before them. They should play a leading role in building up the Left forces in the country. This will crucially decide in which direction coalition politics in India shall move in the days to come, said Biman Basu.



POST-1977 COALITION POLITICS



Dwelling on the post-1977 coalition politics in India and Bengal Biman Basu pointed out that at present and in the future, coalition politics would dominate the political scenario. There should be a line of clear distinction drawn, said the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, between the coalition politics being put in motion in Bengal, Tripura, and Kerala on the one hand, and those in the rest of the states. In the other states, the ruling classes would like to see that their lackeys run the governments. Additional ingredients of these state coalition governments are elements of clan and community. All this, however, has served to enhance the political domination of regional parties. In states like Chhatisgarh, there are even regional parties based on districts. The situation overall has prevented the big national parties from coming to office in a monolithic manner. Thus, coalition politics has started to dominate the politics of India as such.



Biman Basu also detailed out the nature of the Left Front in Bengal that had been formed before the elections of 1977. This made the front different from other fronts. He also said that the Left Front was a pro-people, especially pro-poor front. Biman Basu concluded by presenting a laudatory evaluation of the crucial leading role the late CPI(M) leader Promode Dasgupta had played in the formation of the Left Front and in nurturing its growth through difficult times.
http://www.cpim.org/pd/2007/0722/07222007_biman.htm


On Shastri’s death, the Congress was once again engulfed by an internal struggle. Gulzarilal Nanda once again served as the acting Prime Minister, again for a period of less than a month, before being succeeded by Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter. By the late 1960s, Indira Gandhi had engineered a split in the Congress, as the only means to ensure her political survival, and the Congress party, which with every passing year was losing something of its shine, now went into a precipitous decline. In 1971, India crushed Pakistan in a short war that also saw the birth of Bangladesh, and Indira was now at the helm of her powers. But the Congress was now a mere shadow of its former self, and as domestic problems mounted and popular movements directed at Indira Gandhi began to show their effect, she resorted to more repressive measures. An internal emergency, which placed almost the entire opposition behind bars, was proclaimed in May 1975, and only removed in 1977; and the same opposition, which hastily convened to chart its strategy, achieved in delivering the Congress party its first loss in national elections. This government, serving various political interests and led by the victorious Janata Party, which had been formed out of various opposition parties, lasted a mere three years. It was led by the controversial Gandhian and Congress stalwart, Morarji Desai, for two years, and for another year by Chaudhary Charan Singh (1902-1987), who came from a Jat farming community with roots in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The Lok Sabha or Lower Assembly never met during Charan Singh’s Prime Ministership and the political alliance crumbled. Indira Gandhi rode a spectacular wave of victory in 1980. But she did not live to complete her term: shot by her own Sikh bodyguards, who sought to avenge the destruction unleashed upon the Golden Temple, the venerable shrine of the Sikh faith, by Indian government troops given the task of flushing out the terrorists holed in the shrine, she was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Gandhi, in late 1984.

In the December 1994 Lok Sabha elections, Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress party won a landslide election. But Rajiv’s premiership was to be marked by numerous political disasters, and Rajiv’s own name was tainted by the allegation that he had received huge bribes from a Swedish firm of Bofors, manufacturers of a machine-gun for which the Indian army placed a large order. His own finance minister, V. P. Singh (1931-), once a Indira Gandhi loyalist who had been picked by her in 1980 to serve as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, was to turn against Rajiv; and in 1989, V. P. Singh led the Janata Party to an electoral rout over the Congress. However, the revived Janata party mustered only 145 votes, and it had to take the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by L. K. Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee, in order to form a government. It is at this juncture that India truly entered the era of coalition governments. V. P. Singh would soon be brought down by two disputes: one over the status of the Babri Masjid, a sixteenth-century mosque that Hindu militants claimed had been built over the Ram Janmasthan [birthplace], and the second over the recommendations of the Mandal commission pertaining to quotas for various elements of India’s underprivileged masses. On 7 November 1990, by a vote of 356-151, V. P. Singh lost the confidence of the Lok Sabha, and some days later Chandra Sekhar (1927-), with the support of Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress, was sworn in as the next prime minister. However, Congress withdrew its support in March 1991, and elections were called in May.

On 21 May 1991, as intense electioneering was taking place, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Sri Lankan suicide bomber. The mantle of Congress leadership fell on the veteran P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921-2004), who led the party to triumph, even as the BJP raised the number of its seats in Parliament from a little over 80 to 120. On 6 December 1992, acting in defiance of Supreme Court orders, Hindu militants destroyed the Babri Masjid, and so initiated one of the most intense crises in India’s post-independent history. Rao weathered many a storm, and presided over the liberalization of the economy -- the architect of which was Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister and, since 2004, the Prime Minister of India. But Rao could not keep the BJP and its friends in check. In the general elections of 1996, the BJP emerged as the largest party, but its 194 seats were not enough to give it a working majority in the 545-seat Lok Sabha, and Atal Behari Vajpayee’s first government lasted a mere twelve days. A 13-party coalition of the United National Front and the Indian left was brought into power, and Deve Gowda, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, was raised to the office of the Prime Minister; but after less than a year in office, he resigned and was succeeded by Inder Kumar Gujral, whose main contribution in office was to bequeath “the Gujral doctrine” – a reference to his genuine attempts to mend India’s relations with its South Asian neighbors, based on the principle that as the largest country, India could afford to be generous, and did not have to require reciprocity for all its munificent actions.



Adultery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and another person who is not his or her spouse, though in many places adultery takes place only when a married woman has sexual relations with someone who is not her husband. In most cases, in western countries, only the married party is said to have committed adultery, and if both parties are married (but not to each other) then they both commit separate acts of adultery. In other countries, both parties to the adultery are considered guilty, while in others again only the woman is able to commit adultery and to be considered guilty.

Adultery is also referred to as extramarital sex, philandary or infidelity but does not include fornication. The term "adultery" for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term "extramarital sex" is morally or judgmentally neutral.

The interaction between laws on adultery with those on rape has and does pose particular problems in societies which are especially sensitive to sexual relations by a married woman, such as some Muslim countries.[1] The difference between the offenses is that adultery is voluntary, while rape is not. If a woman claims that she has been raped, and the offense cannot be proved, then a conclusion that the sexual relations were voluntary may be drawn, and the consequences of adultery may result. In those circumstances, the woman victim would tend not to report a rape against her.

The term adultery has a Judeo-Christian origin, though the concept of marital fidelity predates Judaism and is found in many other societies. Though the definition and consequences vary between religions, cultures and legal jurisdictions, the concept is similar in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and Hinduism has a similar concept. But the word should be used cautiously when discussing various cultures, some of which permit less permanent forms of marriage, or even sexual "lending".[2]

Historically, adultery has been considered to be a serious offense by many cultures. In some countries, adultery is a crime. However, even in jurisdictions where adultery is not itself a criminal offense, it may still have legal consequences, particularly in divorce cases. For example it may constitute grounds for divorce, it may be a factor to consider in a property settlement, it may affect the status of children, the custody of children, etc. Moreover adultery can result in social ostracism in some parts of the world.

It has been claimed that adultery results from a mental disorder.[3] Whether correct or not, adultery is common. Three recent studies in the United States, using nationally representative samples, have found that about 10-15% of women and 20-25% of men had engaged in extramarital sex.




A leading think-tank in Washington has advised Nuclear Suppliers Group and the American Congress not to make a hasty decision on the Indo-US nuclear deal, given the "dangerous" ramifications of the agreement for non-proliferation efforts.


"India and the Bush administration have played fast and loose in negotiating this agreement, disregarding the clear conditions that Congress had stipulated," Leonor Tomero, Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in a statement.

"Given the discrepancies between the provisions that Congress insists on before completing the deal and the agreement that the administration negotiated with India, it is incumbent upon Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group to give the agreement careful consideration and to not allow themselves to be rushed into a hasty decision," he said.

The IAEA Board of Governors is expected to meet on July 28 to consider the safeguards agreement, after which the NSG members will be asked to exempt India from rules barring nuclear trade with those states that do not accept full-scope safeguards agreements on all of their nuclear facilities.

"These are not trivial issues," said John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Centre.

"This exemption would tie the hands of the next administration and greatly compromise US and international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials," he added.

The Centre has said that the Nuclear Suppliers Group may meet in September and that it is expected that at least two sessions will be needed to come to agreement. Once these two steps have been completed, the US Congress will be free to vote on the final Indo-US 123 agreement. Time is running out, however, as the US Congress is scheduled to adjourn for the year on September 26," the Centre has said.



Bangkok, November 24 (PRD),
The Ministry of Culture warns that news coverage about adultery scandals of public figures, including politicians and celebrities, might violate Article 9 of the 2007 Act Protecting the Victims Suffered from Family’s Violence.

The Director of the Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights Foundation, Mr. Shapphasit Khumpraphan , says the media cannot reveal the victims’ names of families’ violence as prohibited by Article 9 of the Act. Penalties include an imprisonment of not exceeding six months and/or a fine of up to 60,000 baht.

Thiland officially banned news coverage about adultery scandals of public figures including politicians and celebrities there. It is never banned in India. Even in literatuere, the elite and highcaste adultery remains intact under dirty linel. While the Mythical indigenous life style is exposed with portrayal of sex Maniacs as we see it in different colors of human documentation of Hatred specially in Indian languages since Tara shankar Bandopadhyay. The Hindu Morality is nothing but Hipocricy infinite full of sex rivalary and sex starvation. Thus the Blue film culture broke the spine of so called Great indian hindu civilisation with the first stroke of Globalisation and Information explosion.



Slavery of Indian Woman continues in Post Modern Globalization age with resurgence of Hindutva which used all the holy scripts to make the woman a SEX Machine. Corporate Imperialism has made the post modern woman a SEX Doll, marketable Commodity in Iconised Economy tagged with US Zionist weapon Industry. Female Infanticide in India is a theoretical and discursive intervention in the field of post colonial feminist theory. It focuses on the devaluation of women through an examination of the practice of female infanticide in colonial India and the reemergence of this practice in the form of femicide (selective killing of female fetuses) in post colonial India. Femicide is seen as part of the continuum of violence on, and devaluation of, the post colonial girl-child and woman. In order to fully understand the material and discursive practices through which the limited and localized crime of female infanticide in colonical India became a generalized practice of femicide in post colonial India we have to closely examine the progressive British-colonial history of the discovery, reform, and eradication of the practice of female infanticide. The violence against woman was the monopoly in Highcatse society in Pre Independence India misusing the family fabric, institution of marriage, in which Verginity was extremely a Femal affair while the High Caste Man was privileged to have SEX with anyone anywhere and it was never considered Adultery at any level. Urbanisation and Industrialisation inflicted the Virus of Violence aginst women in the Indigenous communities hitherto known for equal social and economic status for woman!

This anarchy of Sex Life glorified with Virginity culture and the Institution of Sati has made Indian Power politics the most Corrupt and Immoral political entity well expressed by the politics of adultery, alliance and Defection. This Political adultery involves all kinds of National and international bargaining and blackmailing with full fledged Money, Media and Muscle power!

Specially, in Indian politics, the Brahminical hegemony is nothing but the Real story of Alliance ADULTERY enveloped into high class philosophy and Ethics. Freedom at Midnight is reflected best as a high profile case of adultery between Nehru and Edwina!

And just read this!

Sex Antics of Mohandas Gandhi: His Failures, Pedophilia, Adultery, Incest, Sexual Perversion & Fetishes
Posted on December 25, 2007 by Moin Ansari
THE NAKED FAKIR UNMASKED-Updated July 4th, 2008

Sexual Antics of Gandhi–His political and personal failures, urine drinking habit, love for enemas, consumption of his own piss, his drinking of Holy Cow urine, Pedophilia Incest, Adultery, weird fetishes, and Sexual Perversion.


“it costs the nation millions to keep Gandhi living in poverty.” Sarojini Naidu



This issue contains these articles:

1) “Sexual Antics of Gandhi:” An anthology or research based on the books by Gandhi’s grandsons.

2) “Gandhi’s Girls“:- very comprehensive Time Magazine article with blow by blow details of the exploding news about Gandhi’s indiscretions,

3) “Was Gandhi a Tantric:” Well researched article on the details of his liaisons.

4) Other articles are being included and updated. The works of Tim Watson and G.B. Singh published in 2008 are bing added/updated.
http://rupeenews.com/2007/12/25/six-stories-of-mohandas-gandhi-his-failures-sexual-perversion/


Mayawati said that old cases are being opened by the CBI at the behest of the Congress which in turn is trying to keep the SP in good humour following its crucial support to the Indo-US nuclear deal. BSP supremo and UP Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday slammed the Congress for misusing CBI to falsely implicate her in phony cases. She also leveled allegations that she is being harassed as a part of the recent deal between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today accused Congress and BJP of ganging against her. Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, BSP supremo said that there is a well planned political conspiracy to malign her and her party ahead of Lok Sabha polls.

The BSP chief also stated that such campaigns against her are launched whenever there are elections. She made it clear to the media that the Congress-led government at the Centre should not think BSP will be scared by such conspiracies.

Amid reports of an aggressive BSP trying to woo dissenting Samajwadi Party MPs, leaders of the Mulayam Singh Yadav's party are working overtime to redress their grievances over the decision to back UPA on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Many Muslim MPs of the SP have come out in support of the party high command's decision, saying they are solidly behind Yadav.

Terming dissident Munnawar Hasan (from Muzaffarnagar) as an opportunist, Ruab Sayeeda (from Bahraich) told that he is the lone Mulsim MP to have expressed his views against the party high command.

"All necessary explanations were sought from relevant authorities including former president A P J Abdul Kalam. Now there are no doubts either in the party leadership or among MPs," said Sayeeda who is also the wife of senior party leader and MLA Waqar Ahmed Shah said.

Party MPs Rashid Masood, Shafiqur Rehman Burq and Salim Shervani also said that they had no doubts and the nuclear deal is not anti-Muslim. They criticised BSP president Mayawati for giving the controversy a communal colour.

Sayeeda warned Muslims and their religious leaders against falling prey to her gameplan. "Muslims are not a separate entity and if the deal is in national interest, the community cannot keep harping on a mere speculation."

Criticising Mayawati, Sayeeda said her recent moves are another attempt to deceive the Muslim community. She said the BSP leader was earlier aligning with the BJP to grab power.

Sayeeda said leaders like Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma have also supported the SP on the issue and will be following the party whip.

Expressing similar views, Rashid Masood from Saharanpur said that even the two main sects of the Muslims representing the Deoband the Barelivi school of thoughts have viewed that the deal is not against Muslims.

Shafiqur Rehman Burq from Moradabad said that Mayawati had been playing politics on the issue and trying to portray herself as the well wisher of Muslim community. "Instead of saying such things, she should have done something worthwhile for their welfare."

Salim Sherwani from Badaun said what is good for the country is good for all communities. Afzal Ansari from Ghazipur and Atiq Ahmed from Phoolpur are presently in jail but Sayeeda said they would also go by the party's stand.

The SP claims that all its 39 MPs who fought previous general elections on its symbol will support the trust vote of UPA government.

Two days ago, Jai Prakash Rawat from Mohanlalganj said he would vote against the deal on the floor of Parliament and also claimed support of 12 other party MPs.

The party leadership is now trying to pacify some MPs like Salim Sherwani from Badayun who was earlier unhappy with the party's stand.

"All the countries we have spoken to are positive in their attitude (over India's civil nuclear cooperation with the US)," National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told journalists accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his way back from the G-8 summit in Japan.

On discussions Singh had with US President George W Bush and other G-8 leaders on the sidelines of the Summit, the officials said they do not anticipate any problem from other countries that India has spoken to.

The officials gave the reply when specifically asked whether Japan was on board on the Indo-US deal.



Menon said in discussions the Prime Minister had with leaders of the G-8, with the exception of one, the prime minister brought up the nuclear deal.



"No country gave a negative response," Narayanan said.

On Japan' stand, Menon said its Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who was Chairman of the Summit, has in his summary reflected the positive outlook.

"You have to ask him. He read out the text as Chairman of the G-8. He said they are ready to cooperate in nuclear energy."

"I can only speak about the leaders we have spoken to. They have expressed themselves in the statement. All the G-8 members are on board. All the other countries we have spoken to are positive," the two officials said.

Menon quoted the G-8 Chairman's summary which had a separate chapter on Civil Nuclear Cooperation with India.

"We look forward to working with India in the IAEA and the NSG and other members, to advance India's non-proliferation commitment and the progress so as to facilitate a more robust approach to the civil nuclear cooperation to help it meet its growing energy needs in a manner that enhances and reinforces the global cooperation in non-proliferation programme," it said.

On the civil nuclear cooperation, Singh informed Bush that the government was going ahead with the initiative.

Bush told the Prime Minister that he has been discussing the subject with the G-8 leaders and their views have been reflected in the Chairman's summary, Menon said.

He said President Bush has made no secret of his determination on the nuclear deal that "he would do what they have to do in the matter".

The subject of the nuclear deal came up during discussions with all the leaders with India informing them of its intention to proceed with the initiative and getting a positive from all of them.

Asked about the US attitude, he said "I think that stage as to who will do and what was settled in 2005 (July 18, 2005 joint statement by India and US). Both sides are committed and both sides will do that."

To a question on Australia's stand which has refused to supply nuclear fuel to India, Narayanan said there was no reference to the uranium in the discussions between Singh and his counterpart Kevin Rudd.

"We have not taken up the subject with them because we have to get the NSG clearance first. The Australian side was extremely positive and they would consider."


Addressing media persons at a press conference in New Delhi, Mayawati said, “Whether it BJP or Congress, whoever is in the power at the Centre, they use CBI against me and try to rack up some cases to tarnish me and my party’s image.”

On Thursday, CBI had told the Supreme Court that it had “sufficient” evidence to prosecute Mayawati in a disproportionate assets case registered against her five years back. The investigating agency had incidentally distributed copies of the affidavit to various media houses before it could reach the Chief Minister's lawyers.

Questioning the timing of the filing of the affidavit by the CBI, she said, “Why the CBI changed the scheduled hearing of the case before the normal hearing. Also, it comes just before the trust vote in the Parliament.”

"Congress-led UPA should not be under any illusion that we will be intimidated and come under their pressure," Mayawati said but sidestepped questions over her party's stand on the trial of strength of the Manmohan Singh Ministry on July 22.

Inspite of questions like her reported attempts to break Samajwadi Party MPs and about her strategy in the trust vote, her refrain was that she would hold a separate press conference to announce her decision.

Singling out the CBI director for attack, she said that filing the affidavit soon after her party's withdrawal of support to the Centre and before the trust vote, brings the action of the premier investigative agency under "needle of suspicion".

CBI’s affidavit in Supreme Court is part of behind-the-scene conspiracy against me, alleged Mayawati.

Meanwhile, senior BSP leader S C Mishra said that the party will explore all legal options to file defamation case against CBI officials.



In India’s Coalition Math, Marxists’ Power Is Magnified
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: October 9, 2007



To a stranger, Prakash Karat and the organization he leads, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), would seem like anachronisms in the roaring capitalist economy that is India today.
But quite improbably, by seizing on India’s deepening friendship with the United States, Mr. Karat and his party have lately emerged as a sharp and dangerous weapon against the coalition government, making it plain that though the Communists do not have the strength to rule India, they have the power to spoil the plans of those who do.

On Tuesday, as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, was in India for what the government described as a routine, long-planned visit, political squabbling intensified, and speculation was rife that the increasingly strained relations between Mr. Karat’s party and the government that it has supported were about to give way.

India’s electoral math makes it impossible for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government, which is led by the Congress Party, to govern without the backing of its Communist allies, principally Mr. Karat’s party. And so, if Mr. Karat carried out his veiled threats to withdraw support, the government could not continue, and fresh elections would have to be called before its five-year term expires in 2009.

In a vague bit of saber rattling, Mr. Karat has threatened “serious consequences” if Mr. Singh’s government advances its negotiations on its nuclear deal with the United States. He sees it as a part of a strategic alliance with the United States, intended to increase American weight in Asia — and he wants none of it.

“We don’t want to be another Japan,” Mr. Karat said. “It’s not in our interest.”

The nuclear accord — initiated by the Bush administration, approved provisionally by the United States Congress and described as a centerpiece of a new relationship between the countries — would allow India to buy nuclear technology to generate energy. It would require India to negotiate separate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The Congress Party seems to be rolling up its sleeves for a battle. The fourth-generation scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty, Rahul Gandhi, was recently elevated in the party, becoming one of 11 general secretaries. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, the party chairwoman, said Sunday that those who opposed the nuclear deal were “enemies” of progress.

“We need not surrender our vital interests to America,” the leftist parties roared back on Monday in a statement.

Government officials have contended that the deal does not signify the surrender of an independent foreign policy, an assertion that seems to have been borne out most recently with respect to Myanmar, formerly Burma. India has cultivated good relations with Myanmar’s military rulers, and in contrast to American calls for sanctions, it has said little about the latest crackdown on antigovernment protests, except to gently suggest a investigation into the killings of protesters.

Oddly, Mr. Karat’s group has been closer to the American position on Myanmar in that it has urged greater pressure on its military rulers. He is fond of excoriating American policy in Iraq and equally fond of highlighting India’s traditional strategic and cultural links with Iran.

It was the nuclear deal that prompted Mr. Karat’s most ferocious threats against the government and not a host of issues that might be expected to anger the Communists, like the dismal statistics on child malnutrition in India or the poor state of the country’s public health system.

The Communists, long a part of the Indian political fabric, have rarely wielded as much influence as they have in the past three years as the government’s allies. They have been blamed for blocking further liberalization of the economy, including the entry of foreign retail chains, for putting the brakes on proposed changes in labor laws and for opposing the nuclear deal on the basis of a lingering cold war mind-set.

“There is a knee-jerk anti-Americanism,” said the historian Ramachandra Guha. “In some sense they can’t forgive America for having won.”

Mr. Guha also took pains to credit the Communists for having been less corrupt than other parties and for preventing violence against religious minorities in the states they have controlled. Such violence has engulfed many other places across India.

Shekhar Gupta, editor of the English-language daily The Indian Express and one of Mr. Karat’s sharpest critics, said the Communist Party of India’s opposition to the government had nothing to do with performance, only ideology.

“Nothing irritates the left more than people of the other persuasion running a government successfully,” Mr. Gupta said.

The Indian Communists are buffeted by ideological disagreements of their own, with Mr. Karat beating an anti-American drum, while his comrades in West Bengal, a state governed by the Communists, woo American industry to revitalize a sagging economy.

That state-led industrialization drive — call it the Bengal Communists’ more hammer, less sickle policy — has invited violent peasant protests, and some say it has weakened the party’s hold on one of its two key states. Kerala State is the other. The party holds 43 of 545 seats in Parliament, and forcing elections soon would not necessarily improve its standing.

Whether realpolitik will trump ideology remains to be seen. Mr. Karat, at any rate, casts himself as an ideologue. “We’re not going to come into power,” he said flatly. “We may win seats. We may lose seats.”



For the government, Mr. Karat represents only one kind of Communist worry. India has another set of Communists: the Maoist guerrillas, uninterested in elections but increasingly, and violently, active to varying degrees in 13 of 28 Indian states. The prime minister has described those Communists as India’s biggest internal security threat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/world/asia/09india.html?ref=world



Political marketplace: Lessons of coalition politics
Indian Express
India
Saubhik Chakrabarti




Monday, July 07, 2008
Politics is again a bazaar. Ruthlessness, profiteering, greed and basic instincts are in view. It’s a bit ugly. And it’s very, very useful for this country. It’s what a complex country needs to deliver a few key policies. How else can this complex country be run? With national politics not in a stable bipolar mode but with the country requiring that a few key policies be delivered, change-makers have to tactically use the attractions of political power, writes Saubhik Chakrabarti in the Indian Express
NEW DELHI, India: Amar Singh’s braggadocio, which sometimes makes you wince, not Prakash Karat’s easy-on-the-eye gentility, is setting the tone of national politics. Bazaar bargaining is back. Deals are being cut again in the political marketplace. Ruthlessness, profiteering, greed and basic instincts are in view. It’s a bit ugly. And it’s very, very useful for this country.



If carrot has replaced Karat as the principal determinant of national politics, it is only because India’s policy-making system needs a politics that’s pragmatic, even if it’s not pretty. Four years of Marxist finger-wagging have made many of us forget how national politics has operated after the Congress ceased to be a natural winner — it has operated by handshakes between many apparently disparate parties. Marxist proscriptions on policy have also made us forget that these handshakes, frequently followed by unrepentant palm-greasing, have delivered the following immensely important political/policy paradigm shifts: the Congress was made to pay for political arrogance and then rewarded for humility, the BJP was shown as fit for governance and then made to pay for political overconfidence, the third front was made to pay for political fantasising, economic reforms happened, and foreign policy became rational.



Post-Rajiv Gandhi, Marxists and the BJP together at one point as well as other players kept the Congress out for long enough for the party to understand that its patent on governing India had expired. Atal Bihari Vajpayee built a tactical alliance that’s still the model of coalition governance. Then, post-Vajpayee, the Congress’s newly minted friends and the Marxists showed the BJP that even being a few seats behind its national rival could mean five years in the opposition. The Congress twice ruthlessly established that trying to run a national government by having a national party hold up a third front variation doesn’t work — the logic of national politics is against it.



Through all this making and unmaking of friendships, haggling and sometimes ghastly personal profit maximising, India started and never reversed its dissociation from socialism. Narasimha Rao, who politically broke the back of the economic ancien regime, did not even have a full-term parliamentary majority. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral weren’t passionate reformers. As prime ministers with little hold on real levers of power, they were content when the then ex-Congressman P. Chidambaram, who had a communist as a cabinet colleague, took up the job of reforming the economy.



Vajpayee was apparently forced by the RSS to pick Yashwant Sinha as finance minister because Sinha better understood swadeshi. But Sinha, as many astute observers of the Indian economy point out, proved to be a doughty and clever reformer. Foreign policy changed, too, in part because of another nuclear test, for which Rao, who allegedly had to buy votes to secure a House majority, had prepared brilliantly and which Vajpayee, leading the BJP’s first coalition that lasted barely a year, executed equally astutely.



So when the UPA took power in May 2004, Delhi since 1989 had been witness to plenty of bazaar politics and a few great, positive changes. The hope was that the UPA would be no different in essence. The common minimum programme was on the face of it a silly document. Actually, it contained a serious promise — that this would be the template on which policy bargaining will happen and the fig leaf that would cover policy “departures”. But then something changed. Karat’s CPM abandoned the rules of the bazaar. Bar putting some of the party’s fellow travellers in decorative public offices, Karat’s CPM wasn’t interested in give and take.



Had Karat been interested in give and take, as every member of the ruling alliance has been since 1989, the UPA could have done a number of things without the CPM having to change its rhetoric. It could have sold small stakes in PSUs without privatising any of them. It could have worked on passing a banking bill that calls for upping the quantum of minority private shareholding in public sector banks and still kept the banks in the government fold. It could have increased FDI limits in some sectors. It could have passed the pension bill at the Centre, taking advantage of the fact that many states were already undertaking pension reform. It could have easily parsed nuclear-deal politics to make the deal look less “American”.



Karat’s CPM didn’t want to trade, though, and the astonishing thing is that the Congress chose to be blind to it for so long. It suits the prime minister’s spin doctors now to put out stories that the PM always knew the Left wasn’t a good partner and the thought of looking elsewhere had always been in his mind. The fact is that the Congress’s pusillanimity allowed the Left to suspend politics as usual.



But never mind. Late in its term but finally the Congress is back in the political marketplace.

Mulayam Singh Yadav has been a socialist, a caste leader, an eager pursuer of corporate friendships, an occasional agrarian reformer (sugarcane in western UP), a spoiler when the Congress wanted to topple the BJP, a helper when the BJP wanted to make sure its presidential candidate defeated the Left’s, a friend of the Left and now a friend of the Congress. He knows the bazaar. With him or the likes of him on its side, the Congress or the BJP can rule by having room for policy manoeuvres.



How else can this complex country be run? With national politics not in a stable bipolar mode but with the country requiring that a few key policies be delivered, change-makers have to tactically use the attractions of political power.



It is satisfying to note therefore that Karat’s CPM may pay for subverting the rules of political business. Minus the whip hand over a government, with the next elections most likely delivering fewer seats in Kerala and perhaps even in Bengal, with the Congress surely having learnt a lesson and the BJP declared a pariah by the Marxists, the CPM may be reduced to being a witness to many deals being made, who knows, may be even the nuclear deal.

This article was published in the Indian Express on Monday, July 07, 2008. Please read the original article here.
http://indefenceofliberty.org/story.aspx?id=1600&pubid=1379



Coalition politics is not opportunism, says Chidambaram

By Our Special Correspondent



COIMBATORE, JAN. 23. The Congress Jananayaga Peravai (CJP) leader, P. Chidambaram, today appealed to the people not to ignore alliances and coalition politics as ``opportunism'' as otherwise ``complete instability'' will prevail in the country. Coalition politics should be ``welcomed and encouraged'' as ``India's political system is maturing.''

Responding to queries on the confusing political scenario, Mr. Chidambaram, citing Western Europe, told newsmen that the formation of alliances now was ``natural and practical politics.''

India should be prepared for and reconcile itself to coalition politics. He termed the contradictory views ``reactionary.'' ``In a coalition, no party has given up its principles. But in a pluralistic country, which has given rise to so many parties and where voters are divided, such a situation is inevitable.'' After all, an alliance was formed to face the elections.

To a question, Mr. Chidambaram said it would be possible for the Congress and the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to co-exist. ``Apart from combating communalism, they could have a common programme on promoting job-oriented growth, instead of the current jobless growth.''

There was nothing wrong in these parties joining hands in some States, while they might have to contest against each other in three others.

If two alliances were formed — one with the Congress and the other with the Bharatiya Janata Party at the helm at the national level and one with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the other with the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, ``I welcome it because it is healthy for the democracy. And whoever forms the Government at the Centre will definitely have a full term.''

All that the people should look for (when alliances are formed) was whether the coalition Government would be stable and whether it could provide some programmes. ``Was it possible to provide a stable government in the divided polity?''

Mr. Chidambaram pointed out that it took virtually two centuries for England to have a two-party system. ``In India, it would definitely take some more time.''
http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/24/stories/2004012407340400.htm



India, China and Russia to create new alliance to challenge USA's supremacy
Front page / World
12.04.2005 Source:


Pages:

Originally, Beijing and Delhi were not inspired with the perspective of the trilateral strategic partnership

The dispute regarding the first priority in the foreign policy of Russia – whether it should have the Western or the Eastern orientation – has been going on for quite a long time already. The discussion was not surfacing much only during the Soviet era, perhaps. However, it would not be correct to compare the foreign policy of the USSR with the one of present-day Russia.


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The issue of the Russian foreign political priority has been gathering pace for the recent six or seven years. The then Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who currently chairs the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, became the person, who spurred the issue up again. Mr. Primakov set forth the idea to establish a special relationship between Russia, India and China. The idea was later referred to as “Primakov's Triangle” in Russian journalism.

It goes without saying that the idea of creating such a triangle is based on the wish to challenge the supremacy of the USA. This desire can be seen rather clearly, although it differs a lot with the real state of things. The idea seems to be quite nice, although Primakov's triangle is not likely to take the shape of something real. Yevgeny Primakov's idea was impromptu, for the politician did not put forward any certain suggestions on the matter.

Beijing and Delhi were not inspired with the perspective of the trilateral strategic partnership because of the above-mentioned reason. The two countries are not ready to challenge Washington just because of the fact that they are happy with their cooperation with the USA in comparison with Primakov's idea to come into a certain political alliance with Russia. In addition, the US administration has recently lifted restrictions for arms deliveries to India, which might cause very big problems to the Russian defense export to this country. The USA does not have an intention to make such a concession to China, though. On the other hand, Washington has recently removed its objections regarding lifting the embargo for arms deliveries from the European Union.

In addition, the USA is an extremely important trade partner for India and China. Russia will not be able to make a competition at this point, at least in the nearest perspective. Needless to mention that neither Delhi nor Beijing will agree to sacrifice the profit for the sake of a rather obscure goal.

To crown it all, both India and China used to experience keen rivalries in the struggle for their influence in the Asian region. Pakistan was supporting China in that struggle, whereas India was having traditional problems with it.

Russian experts are being rather skeptical about the idea to establish an alliance with India and China too. Yevgeny Primakov stated last week at the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Ministry of China that such an opportunity seemed to be possible for him. “The triangle will be very helpful in maintaining the regional security,” Primakov said. Sergei Karagonov, the chairman of the presidium of the Russian Council for foreign defense policy, is certain, though, that Primakov's idea is nonviable. The specialist believes that none of the three states want to create a direct opposition to the USA: “China, Russia and India want to be friends with the USA,” Karagonov said.

Mr. Karagonov also pointed out considerable cultural differences between the three countries, as well as intense relations between China and India, RIA Novosti reports.

It was reported on Monday, however, that India and China concluded a strategic partnership agreement. Details of the new document were not exposed, although it is known that the parties came to agreement on the issues of the long-standing border dispute, bilateral trade relations and the economic cooperation. Indian and Chinese prime ministers stated that the document would boost diplomatic and economic links between China and India and help the two states resist “global threats.”

For the time being it is not known if Russia is going to have at least something to do with the “strategic partnership” of India and China. It is not ruled out, though, that Beijing and Delhi decided to do without Moscow's participation.

Pravda.ru forum. The place where truth hurts

Hindutva Culture And
Electoral Alliances


By Nalini Taneja


People's Democracy
25 February, 2004

We seem to be witness to a rather contradictory phenomenon these days. The attacks on education and secular cultural expression have become more frequent, far more sectarian, and reflect anything but a desire to accommodate. On the other hand, at the level of electoral politics the BJP is going around appealing to all and sundry to join its already quite broad NDA alliance. How does it manage this apparently quite contradictory feat? How does it get away with it? Even parties who it seems would stand to lose their mass base, should the BJP succeed in its Hindutva agenda, are ready to join an electoral alliance that includes them, and to fall in line with a cultural agenda that excludes them.


Despite the recent victories in the assembly elections one can say that in electoral terms the BJP remains just where it was in the last round of national elections. It is in no position to win the coming elections and form a government on its own. Yet it gets away with attacks on culture and educational institutions, both matters of direct concern to people. In ideological terms it is much stronger than it was in the last round, primarily because its social and political vision finds favour with and reflects the prerogatives of the ruling classes better than any other party.


IN THE SERVICE OF RULING CLASSES


The BJP it has achieved almost a monopoly of support from the ruling classes. This support becomes a big factor in pressurising other bourgeois parties, the Congress and the regional groupings, to accommodate the Sangh Parivar cultural agenda. They are after all competing for and reflecting the same ruling class interests. The leaders of these other parties may question whether India is really shining, but for most of them, their vision of a shining India is not much different from that of the BJP.


All said and done, there was never so much dissatisfaction against the ruling classes, and never so much domination of popular imagination by ruling class ideas. While it is possible today to have great trade union actions on issues of service conditions, livelihood and the right to strike, and there is widespread opposition to fee hikes, denial of access to water, increasing costs of power and the erosion of the PDS, this does not necessarily translate into opposition to the Sangh Parivar’s cultural agenda.


ASCENDANCY OF THE RIGHT WING


The BJP on its part is willing to concede as little in terms of its cultural agenda, as it is in terms of its economic agenda. The erosion of the Nehruvian, Liberal paradigm in economy has meant a weakening of the politics of the centre and the collapse of the liberal political alternative. The parliamentary representative institutions assiduously built by the early nationalist leadership are being twisted and manipulated to serve right wing economic and political agendas. The great flexibility and fluidity of electoral political alliances is but a manifestation of this erosion of liberal politics and the ascendancy of the right wing, and a situation where apart from the Left there is no political party that takes an uncompromising stand against communalism.


Institutions, both cultural and educational, are today being captured not from those branded as Left or ‘pseudo secularists’, but from those who represent a conservative stance in ideological terms. The agendas being undermined in the more recent spate of attacks (barring those on Habib Tanvir) are not those of the Left, who have already been sidelined in all institutions that matter over these last four and a half years, but those who stood with the right wing through the Nehruvian years. Left leaning journalists in most sectors of media are under extreme pressure and have little independence. It is only in the universities and colleges that they still have a presence as teachers and trade unionists.


A lot of those under attack now are individuals and institutions that have contributed to the notion of an eternal India primarily Hindu in ‘soul’. In fact it would not be out of place to state here that while Nehru was busy building his temples of learning—the IITs and Centres of Science and Technology—and public sector units of heavy industry with the help of socialist USSR, cultural institutions remained permeated and dominated by people of soft Hindutva persuasion and little secular concern. Institutions like Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Sangeet Natak Academies and Sahitya Academies have never fostered or promoted democratic cultural expression. Those at the helm of affairs in cultural fields have tended to be patronising towards popular culture, and crafts and dances and have showcased them in festivals, but their cultural expression has never been seen as intrinsic to the making of India as a civilisation even, leave alone to the making of its political personality.


ATTACKING INSTITUTIONS DOMINATED BY LIBERALS


That even these institutions and individuals are now under attack by the radical right is an indication of the narrowness and exclusivity of the cultural vision of the Sangh Parivar and the government that represents them. It reflects and parallels the narrowness and exclusivity of the pro-ruling class economic policies of the Sangh Parivar and the government that represents them. It is this parallel, which necessitates suppression of all dissent and democratic expression that also makes attacks on cultural expression tolerable to those political parties who claim to be secular and concerned about minorities, dalits and women. It is not simple opportunism. It can be seen in the media coverage of these events which reduce these attacks to madnesses indulged in by the [lunatic] ‘right wing fringe’, without holding the right wing government responsible. We have this fringe, as ministers in our government is something the corporate owned media seems not to have noticed, despite the routine and continuous appearances of these ministers on the platforms of this ‘right wing fringe’.


The trend was perhaps set by the takeover of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, which despite being built up by the Congress regime was always dominated by those who are soft on Brahminism in culture and whose critique of modernity has always been from a conservative right-wing point of view. They have now been usurped by the radical right—the independent radical right intellectual and the Sangh Parivar variety, for both of which they helped do intellectual spadework (to borrow Lukacs’ phrase).


Bharat Bhavan has a similar history. Established during the Arjun Singh era in Madhya Pradesh by his ‘right hand man’ (right in several senses) and the culture Czar, Ashok Vajpeyi, it has traversed diverse territories in the last few decades from being a den of avowedly anti-communist and anti-left intellectuals and artists and Cold-War think tank in culture to a right-of-the-centre cultural institution with some semblance of liberal outlook to a culturally cosmopolitan forum of artistic exchange. Despite its overt and covert support to the political right and blatant anti-left prejudice it was always in hot waters whenever a BJP government came to power in Madhya Pradesh because of the tussle over control.


Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) of Pune has not exactly been known for being a centre of enlightenment—it has often been seen as a place of Brahmanical dominance and reactionary leanings of its establishment. In fact, it is people associated with it who have initiated chauvinist historiography on Maharashtra, and there are many among them who initiated also the demand for ban on Laine’s Shivaji book. It is a different matter that the situation is now out of their control.


Bharatiya Lok Kala Mandal is now being attacked by Bajrang Dal for sponsoring a campaign on brest feeding which uses pictures of Gods and Godesses to make the point. It is an indication of today’s situation that we are today forced to defend this parochial form of promoting something, which can equally well be promoted on a scientific ground.


BLATANT SECTARIANISM


But perhaps the two most blatant examples of the narrowness and sectarianism of the Parivar’s vision is reflected in the removal of MGS Narayanan as Chairman of ICHR, and the call for removing the name of Allauddin Khan from the Madhya Pradesh Sangeet Academy. MGS Narayanan, we may remember, aided the removal of secular and left historians from the ICHR boards, and was made Chairman by Murli Manohar Joshi himself. Alauddin Khan, the great doyen of Indian music, who made the village of Maihar in Madhya Pradesh his home and started the renowned Maihar Band by organising the orphaned Dalit children of the area and teaching them music. He incidentally was also the father of Ali Akbar Khan, Annapurna and guru and father-in-law of Ravi Shankar. Several other illustrious names in Indian music have been his disciples, such as Nikhil Bannerjee. He has been called by the loutish and ignorant minister of culture from BJP as a ‘Bangladeshi singer’, notwithstanding the fact that the Ustad was born in an undivided in India—in 1872! Of course Advani was also born in Sindh, which is now Pakistan.


We must recognise that these are efforts to intimidate people, and to show what can happen to those who do not fall in line. It is today necessary to defend all those under attack by the Hindutva forces, to recognise their extreme sectarianism and make the broadest possible front with those who oppose the Hindutva forces. It is also necessary, however to recognise the nature of the attacks and the character of those who are being attacked, for they may go along with us only some part of the way, and not very far.

http://www.countercurrents.org/ie-taneja250204.htm



Indo-US nuclear deal and coalition politics



The stand-off between the Congress and the Left and the possibility of early elections yet again prove that unscrupulous coalitions are injurious to national health and development. We urgently need to limit the number of political parties..
CJ: R. Venkatesan Iyengar , 26 Jun 2008 Views:948 Comments:6
THE ‘NUCLEAR showdown’ between the ruling Congress party and the Communist parties – the outside supporters of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government – on the Indo-US nuclear deal has been averted for now. The Congress was willing to strike but was afraid to wound. The Left for its part played the role of a dog in the manger to perfection, with its bark proving to be worse than its possible bite. Both the sides have called for a temporary, but uneasy, truce; they are back in their backrooms, licking their wounds and figuring out what electoral gains they can get out of this deal or no-deal.


Alliances of convenience between disparate political parties, such as the Congress and the Communists, are often formed with selfish motives and hidden agendas. Such coalitions based on political expediency may be in the interests of the parties that come together to form the government, but they are definitely not in the interest of the nation.


The statements and counter-statements that have emanated from the Congress party, the Left parties and the other constituents of the UPA as to whether the government should go ahead with the nuclear deal with the US, are perhaps what Milton long back referred to as “debate at pandemonium”.


Union Railway minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad said that governments come and go, but nuclear power is a requirement and must be created for the next generation; but in the same breath he stressed the need to take all the allies, including the Left, along. Union Agriculture minister and National Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar is of the opinion that the impugned deal is “the best that India could have got under the circumstances”, and adds immediately that the concerns of the Left parties should be addressed. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), another UPA ally, is of the view that the government should go ahead with the deal but not without the Left on board. But none of them has a clue as to how to convince the intransigent Left of the importance of the deal for India.


And, all these parties want the Congress to back down on the nuclear deal if the Left finally decides to walk its talk and chooses to withdraw its support to the government. For none of them wants early elections. With the inflation at a 13-year high and threatening to ascend further, early elections are the last thing these parties want.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had earlier philosophically said that one has to learn to live with disappointments (in the event of the deal falling through), has now even gone to the extent of saying that he would put in his papers if the deal was sacrificed at the altar of political opportunism. That is the only progress the he could boast of with regard to the deal!


The Left parties, in the meanwhile, have threatened that they will not only withdraw support to the UPA government if it goes ahead with the deal, but will also vote against the government if a no-confidence motion is moved against it in the Parliament. Even in the Left ranks, there is quite a lot of confusion. While one of the Left constituents, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), has already withdrawn its representative from the 15-member nuclear panel, Forward Bloc, another Left party has threatened to follow suit, if the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM) and Communist Party of India (CPI) vacillated over their opposition to the deal.


With the benefit of hindsight, one can say that this is what will happen when a handful of parties, with politically and ideologically incompatible beliefs and views, come together to form a government for the sake of forming one or, more precisely, to keep a common enemy [read: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)] out. In fact, since the UPA came to power at the Centre, Congress, the single largest party in the coalition, has been bending backwards to accommodate the various interests of its coalition partners and outside supporters – be it DMK, PMK, NCP, RJD or the Left parties. These parties have extracted their pound of flesh every now and then in return for their support to keep the ragtag coalition in power. What the nation stands to gain, in terms of progress, from such self-important coalitions is anybody’s guess.


In the past, many coalition governments, both at the Centre and the states, have collapsed before the end of their terms due to the inherent weakness of any coalition set up. That too, in the Indian context, coalitions are nothing but the coming together of a few unscrupulous and shameless political parties for their own gain. For example, Sharad Pawar, who walked out of Congress, opposing the ‘videsi’ Sonia Gandhi, does not mind rubbing shoulders with her today as a political ally. Jayalalitha (AIADMK) and Karunanidhi (DMK) have swung from one ideological spectrum to the other (ie BJP and Congress) for some time now. Left parties, which are opposed to the Congress in states such as Kerala and West Bengal, do not mind supporting the same party at the Centre.


The heady cocktail of political permutations and combinations that these parties have managed to come up with, just goes to prove that in their greed for power, position and, of course, pelf, these parties do not mind being seen with anyone. Politics, of course, makes strange bedfellows. Who knows, tomorrow we may even have a BJP-Communist coalition at the Centre! After all, didn’t they come together to prop up VP Singh and keep out Rajiv Gandhi in 1989.


Which naturally begs the question: Is coalition politics good for our democracy? The answer is: a resounding ‘No!” Coalitions distort the verdict of the people. For example, in the last general elections to the Parliament, the people’s verdict was not in favour of the BJP. However, it was not in favour of the Congress either. Another instance: In Kerala and West Bengal, people who were opposed to the Congress party, voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Left parties. But after securing a major share of its seats in these states, the Left parties are today supporting the Congress, against which they contested in the Lok Sabha elections. If this is not the distortion of people’s choice, then what is?


Also, when parties that are ideologically opposed to each other come together to put up a coalition government, governance suffers. For example, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance minister P Chidambaram are all for economic reforms, privatisation and disinvestment. But these are anathema to the Left parties. Also, the central ministers belonging to various regional outfits like RJD (Bihar) and DMK (Tamil Nadu) have shown time and again that they are more interested in nursing their home states (constituencies) than placing national interests above everything else. With such a set up at the Centre, what sort of national development can be expected? The long and the short of it is coalitions like UPA are not only anti people’s mandate, but also anti national Other Articles by R. Venkatesan Iyengar
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Mohammad Asif detained in Dubai for possessing drugs
more >> development.

However, to get rid of coalition politics and to have a single party government at the Centre, the people have to cast their votes decisively in favour of a single party in the elections. Since this is well impossible in a country where caste, regional, and communal considerations often determine the outcomes at the hustings, other alternatives should be thought of. We don’t come across coalition governments in democracies like America and Britain because there are only two major political outfits in these countries. In India too, we should limit the number of political parties to two to three at the national as well as regional level.
http://sports.merinews.com/catFull.jsp;jsessionid=791D1F5835CC513642B0223CBB6B9660?articleID=136422





The Hindu
13 February 2003

India and new age alliances
By C. Raja Mohan

For years India has sought a place at the high table in world affairs. This is the time to make a serious bid for it.
THE SUGGESTION from the New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, that India should replace France as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has not been made in jest. It reflects a growing sentiment in Washington that traditional American alliances are no longer viable instruments in the global war against terrorism. While India itself has been ambivalent about the significance of the imminent war in the Gulf, across the strategic spectrum in America, there is a new recognition of India's potential as an ally in dealing with threats to international security in the 21st century.

Writing in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago, columnist Jim Hoagland has argued: "It is possible to imagine today that America's most important alliance in the future will be built not along Europe's historical and geographical fault lines, as NATO was and is, but along a confluence of democracy and vulnerability to religious-based terrorism and state-sponsored hostility. The United States, Israel, India and Russia fall on the same side of that line. They all pursue missile defense programs that could eventually reinforce each other's security."

Put another way, both the political alliances and technological means to deal with the challenge of international terrorism need to be recrafted. It is only those nations that are victims of international terrorism that will be prepared to fight it. And the means too have to change. Thanks to the proliferation of technologies, international terrorist groups and states that sponsor them might or have already acquired weapons of mass destruction. Since they cannot be deterred by traditional means, devising new methods such as missile defence and pre-emptive conventional strikes has become urgent.

As the biggest victim of extremism and violence, India instinctively understood this when it supported the controversial U.S. plans for missile defence and enthusiastically supported the American war against terror after September 11, 2001. But India's enthusiasm has dimmed after Pakistan returned to the affections of the U.S. after September 11. Tactical considerations on the domestic front and longstanding relations with Iraq have prevented India from defining a bolder approach towards the war in the Gulf.

But if New Delhi sheds its current timidity, it stands to gain immensely after the war in the Gulf. India has rightly cautioned the world against "double standards" in the war against terrorism. The phrase "double standards" is a political jab at the American reluctance to push Pakistan beyond a point on its continuing support to terrorism in India.

This obsessive immediate focus on "double standards" might be making India blind to the historic changes that could result from the Gulf war and their long term consequences for New Delhi's standing in the world as well as its own war against terrorism sponsored by Pakistan. India should in fact be positioning itself to take full advantage of the current moment in international affairs.

The American war against Iraq that will unfold in the coming weeks is about modernising the Middle East and nudging it towards political moderation. It is the first step towards a reconstruction of the Middle East where rising levels of anger and frustration are breeding political resentments that are being exploited by religious extremists. The American project for the reformation of the Middle East is of great consequence for India, both for its own inherent value and its contribution towards the internal transformation of Pakistan.

At the global level, the American war in the Gulf has begun to give what could be a deathblow to the Cold War institutions as well as recent trends that seemed so enduring. The first casualty of the impending Gulf War has been the idea of European unity. The expanding frontiers of the European Union since the end of the Cold War had given rise to the notion of a new and powerful political force in world affairs. The Bush Administration has brutally exposed the limitations of European unity by pitting parts of "old Europe" against the new. While France and Germany are leading the charge against the U.S., the East European nations are providing active military assistance to the American war in the Gulf.

A second victim of the Gulf War has been North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), for long billed as the most stable and powerful military alliance the world has ever seen. For more than five decades, NATO has been the principal military force shaping international security. But today, NATO stands politically paralysed in responding to the American war plans in the Gulf.

The divisions in NATO are not merely about the nature of inspections and U.N. procedures. They reflect fundamental differences about the nature of threats to global security and the means that must be adopted to counter them. Alliances are built on shared threat perceptions and a commitment to fight them collectively. The U.S. and key European players no longer agree that they have a common threat, and therefore find it impossible to deal with them together.

A third casualty of the Gulf War could be the U.N. Security Council. The next couple of weeks would show if the system devised at the end of the Second World War is capable of addressing the new challenges to the international system. France and Germany are confident that they have the number of votes to push for a new resolution that would call for more forceful and extended U.N. inspections in Iraq as an alternative to a war against Saddam Hussein. The Anglo-American powers will demand another kind of resolution that will authorise the use of force. Whether they get U.N. approval or not, the Americans have proclaimed the intention to go ahead with the war plans. It is the U.N. that is in a pickle. Recall the warning by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, that if the U.N. does not rise to the occasion, it would go the way of League of Nations and become a footnote in history.

The war in the Gulf is a defining moment that will set the stage for a reordering of the international security system. It will alter the nature of global institutions as well as reconstitute the hierarchy of great powers. India, which was kept out of the decision-making structures of the old order, has little reason to mourn its passage. It has every reason to make bold in shaping a new order that must be constructed amidst the dissolution of the old. For years India has sought a place at the high table in world affairs. This is the time to make a serious bid for it by demonstrating that India has the political will and capability to act as a great power in recasting the security environment in its neighbourhood and the world.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian Media

Ministry Of External Affairs, India

Subject: Alliance with India
SEMSHOOK
OUR BOND WITH INDIA
Tenzin Tsundue

Tibetan Review
December 2004

Last year around this time, a television news channel quoted His Holiness
the Dalai Lama as saying that he is willing for Tibet to be a part of
China. This shocked many Indians. One of them happened to be the landlord
of my Indian college friend living in Pune. I was visiting Pune for a
photo-exhibition on Tibet that we were organizing in the city. And I was
supposed to stay at my friend's rented accommodation. After listening to
the news clip, the landlord refused to let me step in his house, calling
me "Chinese". I was deeply hurt, but what could I say?

The man knew everything about Tibet and its struggle. My friend protested,
but his landlord was adamant. He said, "If Dalai lama wants to make Tibet
a part of China, then why is he here in India? All the Tibetans should be
immediately sent back to China."

Decades back, when the Indian parliamentarians were first getting to be
conscious of Tibet's occupation by China and the consequential danger to
India, Nehru was questioned about his mild policies towards the PRC. In
defence he said, "not a blade of grass grows there" referring dismissively
to the Aksai Chin area of Ladakh.

This has been the Indian mentality behind issues over its 4,200 km
Himalayan border; part idealistic peace-making and part gross neglect.
Because of this both India and Tibet have suffered tremendously and both
are at a lost to find any solution to the quagmire created by Beijing's
occupation of Tibet.

I have been watching with a sense of sadistic pleasure the rituals as
India and China try to molest each other during their border debates.
While they solemnly pretend to be solving border issues with utmost
seriousness; they both know that without first solving the status of
Tibet, no lasting solution is possible. But as a diplomacy and PR
exercise, the dragon and the tiger have been - uncomfortably - trying to
smile at each other.

As a school kid I first participated in a Tibet protest rally in Kullu
when I was in the fifth standard. We shouted "Tibbat ki azaadi, bharat ki
suraksha", but in the busy Indian streets, bystanders watched us merely
for the spectacle of Tibetans on parade, not giving any attention to what
we were saying. It hasn't changed much even today with the Indian masses.

When news of the PLA's invasion of Tibet reached India in 1950, Indian
leaders expressed outrage and people marched down the streets in Bombay in
protest. That was then the prevalent spirit against foreign invasion and
injustice, having recently won her independence.

Those marchers were one type of Tibet supporters in India. Around the same
time another brand of Tibet supporters were born - the patriotic Indians
who saw the danger to India from the Chinese invasion and occupation of
Tibet. This lot were mainly the educated ones. They supported Tibet
keeping India's interests in mind. This trend grew steadily ever since.
Today the sub-continent has more than 150 Tibet Support Groups. They
mainly work to create awareness about Tibet through grassroots education
and also by lobbying public representatives to take up the issue of Tibet
at the national and international levels.

Last year, when the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went
to China and declared the "Tibet Autonomous Region as part of the
territory of the People's Republic of China", many Tibetans and Tibet
supporters expressed anger and disappointment. Some even called it India's
betrayal of Tibet.

If we look more deeply, I think this happened mainly because we have
failed to convince India the viability of our freedom struggle. Most of
our efforts to explain our situation have been going to the west. After 45
years of protests and asylum in India, the Indian government was still not
convinced of the possibility of free Tibet. India once again decided not
to invest political expediency in us.

But this does not mean India has given up on Tibet. Never. India can't
afford to do that due to her own interests. Besides the border, there are
many other geo-political and cultural considerations that guide India's
interest in a free Tibet.

It was our own decision to seek "Genuine Autonomy" for our homeland
without striving to separate Tibet from China that has left little
political choice for India. When we ourselves go about announcing that we
do not seek independence for Tibet, how can India help us? India won't do
anything that would make China her permanent neighbour.

The fact that India is sheltering more than 130,000 Tibetans living here
as foreigners, with all basic necessities provided, tolerating the illegal
Tibetan Government-in-Exile, and recruiting 10,000 Tibetans soldiers into
the Indian Army, is a clear sign that India has not washed its hand of the
idea of Tibetan independence.

This doesn't mean India will take up the issue of Tibet anywhere. India
has not, and I think she will not, raise it with China or in international
forums. In the mass Indian psyche Tibet doesn't mean anything other than
"Kailash-Manasarover". Tibet is definitely not an issue within India.
There is no political will to support the Tibetan cause.

For the past few months we have been vigorously campaigning across India
to stop the execution of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. Tibetan Youth
Congress took the campaign to four metrop000000n cities, and yet besides a
few news reports no major media took any serious note of the issue. The
colourful Tibetan culture makes a pretty background for Bollywood films,
but it never makes it to the news headlines, not even the Dalai Lama.

>From the first day of exile in India till today we have resettled
ourselves from being empty-handed escapees to become the most successful
refugees with more than 100 schools, over 500 monasteries and cultural
centres and a standard of living that is a little better than the average
Indian. From this basic infrastructure of exile government, our hope of
resurrecting a new Tibet flourished. Today we confidently think of
returning to our homeland to resurrect a new Tibet - and this dream is
only made possible by India.

The reality in which India lives - with a humongous population with
growing "working chaos" as somebody described it - means she has little
energy to attend to any issue unless it is literally burning. To top that
is the power struggle among the political parties, for whom "the seat" is
more important than any national issue. After Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
there's never been a strong government at the centre to make any political
headway.

I have met some Indian communists at strange chance encounters. Though as
Indians we shared many national concerns, they seemed to have a silent
bonding with China when it came to idealism. An in-depth talk with them
made me aware how terribly outdated they are on the issues of Tibet and
China. They still imagine that the Tibetan struggle is supported by the
CIA, citing the involvement of westerners and the fact that the CIA did
support the Tibetan arms resistance movement, but only to check the spread
of Chinese communism to the west. They do not even know that the CIA
abandoned the Tibetans 30 years ago to die in the cold mountains waiting
for food and arms, once the US switched policy and Nixon flew to Beijing
to shake hands with Mao.

And yet, I believe if there is one country that can understand our
struggle to regain the lost freedom and dignity of being a nation, our
craving to re-establish that Tibet which can be a safe haven for our
culture and traditions, it is India. India can help us achieve that, and
will remain a partner in its maintenance.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most sincere and
dedicated Indian friends of Tibet. And I have felt the power of that
spiritual bonding. This is the source of my conviction that finally the
declaration of Tibetan independence will arise from this land.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
*Tenzin Tsundue is a writer and activist for free Tibet. He can be
contacted at tentsundue@xxxxxxxxxxx



Left Politics in India
India's Non-Alignment on the Balance, Communists on Alert

by Nicola Nasser / July 21st, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/left-politics-in-india/
The accelerated pace of India’s liberal economics and pragmatic ties with the United States and Israel risks polarizing Indian domestic politics and invoking a deep-seated communist as well as Islamist anti – Americanism with a realistic potential for a foreign policy strategic shift leading unintentionally and indirectly to creating an internal political environment that could be receptive for the first time to the agitation of the extreme violent Islamists who have been waiting on the sidelines for such a “golden opportunity” in the turbulent Afghani and Pakistani neighborhood, as well as for the agitation of the violent Indian Maoists.

Indian diplomats proudly highlight the fact that their country’s democratic and secular tradition has so far spared India the atrocities of the U.S . – led global war on terrorism and similarly proudly note that so far al-Qaeda has failed to recruit or implicate anyone of the Indian world’s second largest Muslim community, after Indonesia, in their schemes or activities.

The communist – leftist factor has had a decisive role in attracting grassroots anti – globalization, anti – American and anti – Israeli grievances into the traditional democratic channels of the Indian secular system away from violent Maoist and Islamist extremism; however the politics of India’s internally liberal economics and external pragmatic U.S. and Israeli ties risk also polarizing the democratic communist – leftist front, the national third mainstream political movement, and might make their role more difficult as well as more critical in neutralizing the violent Maoist and Islamist threats.

While the Islamist threat is looming, the Maoist is already an Indian security headache. According to a Christian Science Monitor report on August 28 last year, the Maoist insurrection is spreading across India “like an oil stain across paper,” already affecting 14 of India’s 28 States (Chatisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Asma, Uttaranchal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra and Bihar). In figures, that means the Maoists are in control in 165 districts out of the total of 602 into which the country is divided. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recognized the Maoist advance on August 23rd 2006 when he declared to Parliament that the Maoists “have become the biggest internal challenge to security that India has,” the Monitor reported. Undoubtedly Maoists and Islamists will find in the Indian foreign and internal politics of liberal economics precious ammunition for their anti-American propaganda as well as for their internal “struggle.”

Already India’s foreign policy and globalization – oriented liberal economics are creating cracks in the so far united communist – leftist front. The Communist Party of India (CPI) has recently moved for a review of Left parties’ outside support to the ruling coalition of the Congress - led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but The Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), with 44 seats of the New Delhi Parliament’s total of 543, was wisely not for such a move, lest it would bring down the Government: “At this juncture, it [review] would be counterproductive,” said a political developments report, adopted by the central committee of the CPI-M at a June 24-26 meeting.

The Left has been critical of Singh government’s economic and foreign policies and is working for a “political alternative,” the head of the CPI-M, Prakash Karat, told Reuters in an interview recently, adding that the ruling coalition had failed internally to curb rising food prices and was not addressing poverty and lack of investment in the countryside while following unpopular economic policies.

Externally the leftists see that a nuclear deal with the U.S. would or at least could compromise the ruling coalition’s commitment to “independent foreign policy.” India’s National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan was expected with a high-ranking delegation in Washington for talks on July 16-18 to clinch a nuclear deal with the U.S. to coincide with the second anniversary of the landmark July 18 agreement,” the Indian Express reported; two major sticking points has been U.S. reluctance to allow India to reprocess spent atomic fuel, a crucial step in making weapons-grade nuclear material, and to continue nuclear tests. The Indian leftists criticize these U.S. conditions as constraints on India’s sovereign decision making. They also protested a port call in Chennai in early July by the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, a first by a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Moreover they view the deal as courting India away from a potential alliance with Russia and China to counterweight the U.S. global hegemony. They note also that the U.S. administration began the process of agreement with India on the nuclear issue in March 2006, putting an end to the 30-year embargo on nuclear material she imposed on India in 1974, at the same time she began her nuclear crisis with Iran, with whom India has strategic oil interests.

During the last 18 years, India has been gradually dismantling its centralized economy and privatizing its main sectors under the wing of a battery of laws to protect Direct Foreign Investments, especially those from the United States that have now increased from US$76m to US$4bn.

The accelerated pace of the growing ties with Israel was another foreign policy point of criticism by Indian leftists and communists. On July 18 The Times of India reported a “crucial milestone in growing Indo-Israeli military ties” to lift-off from the space centre at Sriharikota an Israeli spy satellite called TechSar, weighing about 260 kg, by a four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Earlier there was the $2.5 billion project to develop a medium range SAM for use with India’s land forces and the Israeli Barak missile system $350 million deal, which the Indian Navy chief, Admiral Arun Prakash, strongly defended in a statement on May 15, saying there was “nothing comparable” to it anywhere in the world, which was objected to by none other than President APJ Abdul Kalam and claimed as its major victim former defense minister George Fernandes in a widely reported corruption scandal.

Communist – led Left on the Move

Reversing an historical trend worldwide, the Indian communists and leftists have been gaining more ground and making progress in a very hostile political and economic environment where globalization – oriented liberals are ruling and responding to the strategic overtures of the United States, the leader of globalization, irrespective of the their affiliation to the Congress or the Janata parties.

At least economically the dividing lines between the mainstream parties of the Congress and Janata have become blurred since 1991 when the leading member of the Congress, Manmohan Singh, became the finance minister of the Janata – led government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, long before securing his party’s nomination for premiership in 2004, a position he still occupies ever since.

An economist by profession and a veteran of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as his country’s central bank, Singh, the first ever Sikh prime minister of India, is considered the most educated and one of the most qualified and influential prime ministers in India’s history, mainly because of the liberal economic reforms he initiated in 1991 and the Indian economic liberalization, which have become established under his premiership since May 22, 2004; he got rid of several socialist policies and opened the nation to foreign direct investments, thus paving the way for stronger relations with the U.S. and Israel, the biggest and the most controversial achievement of his legacy.

Most likely because of the context of this hostile environment, the Indian communists and leftists, who have been closely involved in the presidential and vice presidency elections on July 19 and in August respectively, are gaining ground and making progress while at the same time opposing both the political and economic strategic opening to the U.S. and Israel as well as standing up to the victimization of millions of Indians by the official opening to globalization by the government’s liberal economics.

Ironically the Indian cornerstone of liberal economics and U.S. and Israeli –oriented politics, that is the government of Dr. Singh, is uplifted to survive only by the 61 legislative votes, representing more than 120 million voters, of the Left Front in the federal lower House of parliament. Today, for the first time in India’s history, the federal government in New Delhi remains in power thanks to the Left Front, who decided to support the coalition government led by the Congress from the outside.

This anti – “Red Scare” realpolitic fact of Indian politics is a credit to the world’s largest democracy, which compares positively with the second largest democracy of the United States, where communists and leftists are still screened to deny them employment in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the administration, in line with the 1950s McCarthyism that is supposed to be a defunct “security” practice a long time ago.

Lost in the lively turbulent diversity of the Indian pluralistic society — where monotheistic and non-monotheistic religions and sects sometimes violently clash and other times indulge in dialogue within or outside the limits of secular jurisdiction, national languages in the hundreds coexisting with that of the British colonialist who was “non-violently” forced out leaving behind his English tongue, the unjust four - sect social system that is ironically a national trade mark of the world’s largest democracy, the economic widening gap between the rich and the poor, the continental contradictory landscape between the heights crowned with snow around the year and the arid land of deserts in a country sliced here and there by “sacred” rivers overlooking the Indian Ocean that took its name from her — the outsider often misses the important fact of life of a political system whose democratic credibility allows communist endeavors to prosper in the sea of a national capitalist liberalism swimming in an ocean of globalization after the collapse of the international communist system.

In West Bengal, the communist – led Left Front last June celebrated the 30th anniversary of being successively elected to govern more than 80 million Indians since June 21, 1977, a record electoral success not only in India but also in any parliamentary democracy worldwide. “Consolidate This Alternative,” the People’s Democracy urged on June 24 in an editorial, which MP Sitaram Yechury, the leader of the parliamentary group of The Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) and member of the party’s Politbureau, told this writer that he had written. The Left Front also governs in the states of Kerala and Minipur.

The communists are partners also in the ruling left fronts in Tripura and Tamil Nadu but have no cabinet ministers of their own. On grassroots level they lead mass organizations like the All India Trade Union Congress, All India Youth Federation, All India Students Federation, National Federation of Indian Women, All India Peasants Organization and the All India Agricultural Workers.

The Communist Party of India – Maoist is outlawed, but the CPI-M and the CPI are recognized by the Election Commission of India as “national parties,” and to date, they are the only national political parties that have contested the mainstream Congress and Janata in “all the general elections using the same electoral symbol.” They lead what is known in Indian media as the Left Front, which supports the Indian National Congress – led UPA coalition government in New Delhi, but without taking part in it; their support is conditional on committing to the Common Minimum Programme that pledges to discontinue disinvestment, massive social outlays and an independent foreign policy. (Wikipedia)

Communists are old hands in India. They set up their party early the 1920s, but were outlawed by the British colonial power until Britain allied herself with the former Soviet Union during the WWII and lifted the ban on Indian communists. After the independence in 1947 they resorted to “armed struggle” against local kings and sultans and their people’s army and militia briefly ruled the Hyderabad kingdom before they were brutally crushed out to drop violence ever since. They were the first opposition party to win state elections and rule in Kerala in 1957, an achievement that was criticized by their Chinese and other international comrades. The Indian Chinese war in 1962 split them between “internationalists” and “nationalists.” The split was institutionalized in 1964 with two party congresses.

Foreign Policy is another area where the Indian and American “democracies” diverge, noted Teresita Schaffer, director for the South Asia Program with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the former US deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia and former ambassador to Sri Lanka: “Both nations have different views about how their common democratic heritage should affect foreign policy. For Americans, it is natural to want to advance democracy. For India, however, democracy is not necessarily a product suitable for export. Democratic institutions are a source of great pride, deeply ingrained in how Indian government, politics and society work, yet one aspect of India’s anti-colonial history that remains strong is its passionate commitment to maintaining and respecting national sovereignty. India not only resists external interference, but is reluctant to make a public issue of other countries’ systems of government.”

Non-Alignment on Balance

The divergence on foreign policy between the world’s two largest democracies emanates from India’s anti-colonial legacy, which led New Delhi since independence to strictly tiptoe delicate “non-alignment” policies during the “cold war” era of the bipolar Soviet – U.S. world politics. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union India embarked early in the 1990s on her liberal economics and pragmatic foreign policy, but nonetheless remained honest to her anti-colonial policies to carefully avoid being dragged into the U.S. – led global war on terrorism in a way that could embroil her in the American overseas military adventures and in what many Indian diplomats still condemn as “imperialist” endeavors. Indian foreign policy accordingly is still committed to her traditional solidarity with the world’s national liberation movements.

However the Indian independence advocates of all political spectrum, with the communist and leftist third mainstream political movement in the forefront, are now pondering for how long New Delhi could resist the realistic outcome of the interaction between her globalization – oriented liberal economics and her pragmatic foreign policy. India’s traditional non-alignment is on the balance with potential strategic implications: “A flourishing Indo-Israeli relationship has the potential to make a significant impact on global politics by altering the balance of power, not only in South Asia and the Middle East, but also in the larger Asian region,” Harsh V. Pant wrote as early as December 2004 in volume No. 8 of the Israeli MERIA.

India’s traditional solidarity with the Palestinian people is the best example of a wider solidarity with the world’s national liberation movements, but, “With India-Israel bilateral engagement deepening, New Delhi’s status as a friend of the Arabs is being steadily eroded. Although India continues to maintain a ’studied neutrality’ between Israel and the Palestinians, it is doing a balancing act. And even a balancing act is a significant shift, given India’s unambiguous support to the Palestinian cause for many decades,” Sudha Ramachandran wrote in Asia Times on June 26, 2002.

Indian communists are very well aware of their historical responsibility to preempt the potential alignment of their country’s non-aligned foreign policy; they are careful to maintain their ideological and international solidarity relations with their comrades worldwide as well as with the national liberation movements, in particular the Palestinian national struggle.

On the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in Israel’s 1967 “war of aggression,” Sitaram Yechury, member of the CPI-M’s Polit Bureau and leader of his party’s parliamentary group accepted the joint invitation of the Communist Party of Israel and the Palestinian (formerly communist) People’s Party for a three – day programme in Jerusalem on June 4, named “the Jerusalem Initiative,” which was also attended by 27 international delegations from 12 countries including 7 women organizations and representatives of the communist parties of the U.S.A., Britain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France, the Socialist Left Party of Norway, Red-Green Alliance of Denmark, The Left Party of Germany, AKEL of Cyprus and RJD of India.

Yechury returned to India to educate tens of millions of communists and leftists on the Palestinian national struggle for self-determination in lectures, conferences and three articles published by the party’s “People’s Democracy” and republished or reported by a network of communist and leftist media. He told this writer, who met with Yechury in the Palestinian West Bank town of Ramallah and in New Delhi, that his party and friends collected hundreds of thousands of dollars as a donation to the Palestinian people to help them survive the suffocating two-year old economic siege imposed on them by the Israeli occupying power and her strategic U.S. ally.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait, Jordan, UAE and Palestine; he is based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Read other articles by Nicola.

This article was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Economy/Economics, India. Send to a friend.

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Nagesh said on July 24th, 2007 at 1:55 pm #

This article by Nicola Nasser, which has found its way onto several left websites in the U.S., including, unfortunately, Dissident Voice and Znet, is incredibly misleading. It is quite amazing that Nasser can write about the virtues of the Left Front, and particularly the CPI-M, without once mentioning the ongoing crisis in Nandigram and Singur, where farmers protesting against the seizure of their land have been massacred police and armed CPI-M cadres. See, for instance, this article in Hard News Magazine, titled “The Train Stops at Nandigram,” to get a sense of the depth and reach of disillusionment with the party: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2007/04/870

This is not surprising, of course, given the fact that the CPI-M, among other things, supported the Tiananmen Square massacre, labeling the pro-democracy students as ‘CIA agents and juvenile delinquents’.

For all their leftist rhetoric and posturing, the CPI-M’s opposition to U.S.-India-Israel cooperation stems not from any proven commitment to working-class internationalism, but from its very opposite: an unflinching commitment to Indian *nationalism*.

Nasser and others like him in the Arab world ought to be under no illusions about this. The most obvious example of this commitment to nationalism and national unity lies in the CPI-M’s denial of the right of Kashmiris to self-determination. While they are in favor of reducing Indian military atrocities and such in Kashmir, they will never even consider accepting the demand of self-determination, because, they claim, an independent Kashmir would invite “imperialist intervention” and thus undermine Indian sovereignty! (Indian national rights trump those of the Kashmiris.)

Similarly, in the northeast, there have been liberation struggles taking place in Assam and Nagaland for decades now. The CPI/CPI-M’s response? The same as that of all the other mainstream parties–these areas are understood to be a part of India, and there will be no question about it.

I would like to ask Mr. Nasser: What makes him put so much faith in the “internationalist” credentials of a party that has not proven its internationalism in the country ruled by “its own” bourgeoisie?

If there is a genuine Left in India that is worthy of our support, it is to be found in the numerous grassroots movements that are fighting for real peace, solidarity and equality, but are as yet not organized under any party banner. Sure, the Left Front and its constituent parties are “making gains,” particularly in the electoral arena, but I would argue that they are doing this at the expense of the very classes and constituencies whose interests they claim to uphold: workers and the oppressed.

R.L.Francis said on February 5th, 2008 at 3:08 am #

POOR CHRISTIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT
III A/ 145, Rachana, Vashali – 201010 (NCR)
Email: francispclm@yahoo.com website: dalitchristian.org
————————————————————————-

January 27, 2008

An Open Letter of the Dalit Christians to Hon’ble Prime Minister of India,
Indian Parliamentarians and Indian Church Authorities

The Hon’ble Prime Minister,
152, South Block,
New Delhi -110 011

Wish you Happy Christmas and New Year.

For the last several decades, the Indian Church Authorities and its Leaders at National and International level have been subtly pressurizing the Indian Government to make suitable amendments in the Constitution to include converted Dalit Christians in the list of Schedule Castes. Our Constitution founders and framers had seen the validity of assuring equality and respect to Dalit Hindus in their Hindu fold, while they were not clear as to the implications of the same with Dalit Christians. Hence they formulated the provision for Hindu Dalit reservation for Schedule Caste in the Constitution. The Hindu community as a majority of peoples accepted reservations as a just and fair provision. Thus the Indian constitution gave equal right to the Dalit Hindus because they suffered ill treatment and were oppressed in the society over the centuries. It was a fair and just compensation to the Dalit Hindus for the exploitation done to them.

While Dalit Hindus- who were converted to Christianity- lost their privilege of reservation policy and thus they were not included in the list of Schedule Caste. The Converted Dalit Christians had ‘an historic option’ to decide whether to accept their original religion-Hinduism and return to their community and thus avail the facility of Schedule Caste but most of the Dalit Christians forsook the reservation policy and they decided to remain Dalit Christians (DC) mainly because DCs fondly recalled the words of Jesus Christ: “Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt Ch. 11:28)

Over the decades, the Church Authorities and Leaders belittled the faith of DCs., Besides, the Lords of Christendom- the Bishops, had already condescendingly accepted and treated the DCs as low grade Christians- reminiscent of their ‘original stigma’-untouchables. This subtly implied that DCs should never forget who they were and that it is thanks to valiant, foreign missionaries efforts that they still can be treated as second class followers of Christianity. Thus Church Authorities maintained a clear distinction between ‘those of the earlier accepted the Christian faith and thus possessed a superior grade/class and a superior faith’ and those traits should be preserved till reward day of the Master. Keeping this as a background check, the Indian Church Authorities deemed it fit that Dalit Christians remain uneducated lot, and they were not given proper and equal right for gainful employment least they be filled with a false pride of being true Christians. Notice the subtle distinction and statements of Church authorities when it comes to the game of numbers. DCs who form over 70% of the Christians population should be a’ feather in the cap’ of the numerous foreign missionaries who descended in hordes triumphantly dreaming that one day the whole of India would be Christianized.

Further, the line of thinking of Church Authorities can be described thus: DCs ought to get proper compensation in lieu of governmental benefits they lost is ‘an unchristian consideration’- this would spoil ‘their Christian motivation’. Thus, it was clear to the Bishops and Church Authorities that any such talk of compensation made to DCs is unheard of biblical remedy. Hence DCs should remain poor and despicable to as proof of their newly accepted ‘superior faith’. Moreover, the secular Indian Government should be taught a lesson or two -especially the lesson that it is the ‘duty and responsibility’ of the Indian Government to make appropriate provisions for DCs? And that ‘we the Bishops’ if needed, are ready to fight tooth and nail to see that the Indian Government implements and practices what is enshrined in the Constitution of India. The Government should be blamed squarely because they care two hoots for the plight of the DC while they are pampering the other Dalits with innumerable concessions all for political gain. And why should Church Authorities and leaders make suitable provisions for their own least brethren was beyond the comprehension of the great Lords of Christendom.

In just four hundred years the Christian population grew in leaps and bounds, the Indian Church’s with the selfless efforts of foreign missionaries added millions to the zero percentage of Christians in India. But no Church Authority ever even noticed that the plight of those numerous DCs remained the same. Nay over the decades it worsened. Hence what was and is the primary intention of the pious missionaries becomes clear. Indian Church Authorities and Leaders merely used DCs in a game of numbers and scarcely gave a passing thought to improve the living conditions of DC. The DCs were never or rather deliberately kept out mainstream Christianity and thus they were unable to experience progress and growth in their Christian living even though they had full membership in the various Churches.

Notice this fact, when it came to the ‘battle of equal rights for all Dalits’ the Indian Church Authorities deemed it fit to wage a battle with the mind of Constitution founders and framers. And the battle did begin as early as or as soon as India gained independence. In their heart of hearts the Church Authorities and Leaders wanted that DCs to be loyal Christians and remain faithful members of their respective Churches and yet when it came to the matter of improvement in the standard of living, all their sound reasoning and superior faith failed them. Even an ‘ordinary statements of the assets’ of the Indian Churches- like enumerating the thousands of Christians Schools , Colleges and large compounds, and thousands of other allied majestic institutions like Hospitals and other social work Institutes will show the might of Indian Church wealth. It is well known that Indian Church Authorities have wealth ‘second to none’ in terms of immovable assets and finances. And note - this second to none is in comparison with the Government of India.

Besides, in the name of DCs and poor, the Church gets flooded with funds both from within country and from abroad. And most ironical- the condition of DCs remains as poor as the proverbial Church mouse. Do all these the funds instantaneously disappear into the incredible mouth of Bishop Pip? (Please view the Documentary-‘In search of self respect’, produced by PSBT and Prasar Bharti. http://www.syncline films.com). The Mighty Indian Churches have conveniently divided India and with the magical wand of the Pope and other Church Authorities, have created around 250 to 300 dioceses in the country in order to smoothly run and manage their vast properties and institutions. A diocese may have average around fifty thousand followers. Based on their own methods of mission management: aren’t the Indian Church Authorities and Leaders responsible for the sorry state of affair of DCs? Why is the Indian Church constantly harping on the same old tune that Indian secularism is at stake when they themselves like Pilate constantly wash off their hands regarding a sound and just policy of justice for their least brethren- the Dalit Christians( DC)?.

Why are the Church Authorities forcing our Parliamentarians to debate on the scheduled caste status of DCs? It is for all to see who has a hidden agenda. It is for the Church Authorities to honestly provide a ‘white paper’ on their fabulous wealth and what have they done to alleviate the sufferings of the least of their brethren- the Dalit Christians.

To all Indian Bishops

The open letter is now addressed to the Presidents of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India, of the National Council for Churches in India, Church of South India, Anglicans, Methodists, CNI, and all Bishops of all Christian Denominations.

Most Rt. Rev. Bishops,

Happy Christmas and New Year,

Over the last several decades, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, National Council for Churches in India, all the Protestant Churches and all the Christian foreign funding agencies were and are trying their best to amend the legislation of inclusion in Scheduled Caste status for Dalit Christians. You had several ‘ high level meetings and conferences at National and International level; and you were seen frantically appointing the best legal luminaries to see that DC are included in the list of scheduled caste thus securing a new heaven and a new earth for DCs.

It was reported in the newspapers that your Grace and Lordship have graciously come down to the earth in New Delhi- the National Capital on November 29th 2007. You staged a Dharna for inclusion of DCs into Scheduled Caste status. When your Grace and Lordship, and predecessors converted Dalits from the Hindu society, the main attractions offered to them was that there was no caste discrimination in the Christian society and that they would be treated equally as brothers in Christ. It was with this hope of an ‘egalitarian status’ within the Christian community that the poor Dalits converted themselves to Christianity. If they are still Dalits the question is who has been oppressing them of late, it is true that when they were in the Hindu society they were oppressed by caste system that existed in that society. But was it not a solemn pledge before God and man that these converted Christians would be looked after without any discrimination and with Christian love and sharing?

There is an answer to this question. Obviously, it is the Church Authorities and Leaders who are exploiting the DCs. If only the Church Authorities can spend twenty five per cent of the Church income for the welfare of DCs, surely there will be a great change in the lives of DCs. If only the Church Authorities can give fifty percent of employment in their institutions to the DCs we believe that within ten years, all the DCs will have employment. But alas- the Church Authorities only gives all employment to and give important posts to the priests, nuns etc. Notice that you are creating fatted calves and bestowing on them privileges upon privileges to merely a small class of clergy and superior Christians.

You are seeing the speck in the eyes of Constitution founders and framers but fail to see the mote in your own eyes? For centuries the Church Authorities are merely filling up the barns for a minuscular clergy and pampering them into a parasitical life, while you ignore the cries and agonies of the discriminated DCs. For these very poor, Jesus has said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captive’s recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the year of remission, reward and restoration. Confer, Luke Chapter 4; 16-19.”

Poor Christian Liberation Movement appeals to the Church Authorities and solemnly asks these questions. Why after converting DCs into the Christian fold you have constantly denied and deprived them of proper education facilities, of just employment, and generous financial support? And why do you not give proper Christian respect for DCs? Why do you not offer equal rights to DCs in the Church life?

Who dares to defy US Dictation

Who dares to defy US Dictation



Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 22


Palash Biswas





CIA has all the relevant documents to expose any high profile Leader of this sub continent anytime, though it failed to preempt Nuclear explosions in India. CIA could not smell the Tehran event of making US citizens hostage long before. It could not detect the rot within as the Ultimate Attack executed in USA on 9/11.. But CIA managed well so many coups in third world countries. It always could manage elections anywhere.

Thus, no political party or personality in India may dare to defy dictations from Washington!

US ambassador David Mulford on Friday lauded India's decision to move ahead with the "historic" nuclear deal and said his government will work closely with New Delhi in the IAEA, the NSG and the US Congress to implement it "as quickly as possible". The deal will then go to the 45-nation NSG who will decide on changing its guidelines to favour global commerce with India. This will be followed by the ratification of the deal by the US Congress to make it operational.

Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama supports a civilian nuclear trade deal between India and the United States and would not push for changes to it, an Indian news magazine quoted him as saying.The communists this week withdrew support for the government, which now faces a confidence vote despite moving to prop up its position in parliament with the help of a regional party whose leader backs the deal.

India must surmount other time-consuming hurdles before the end of the Bush administration, including approval from U.N. atomic watchdog governors and a 45-nation group that controls nuclear trade.

"I voted for the U.S.-India nuclear agreement because India is a strong democracy and a natural strategic partner for the U.S. in the 21st century," he told Outlook magazine, according to a transcript provided by the magazine on Friday.

His support may prove decisive if India fails to finalize the deal before the end of President George W. Bush's term.

Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the deal, which gives India access to U.S. nuclear resources and technology for energy, in 2005. Since then it has been stalled by opposition from the anti-U.S. communist allies of India's coalition government, and at moments almost given up for dead.


If India misses the effective deadline of the November U.S. elections, it may seek to revive the deal under the next administration, although pessimists say it may have to agree to less favorable terms.

But Obama said he was broadly happy with the current deal.

"The existing agreement effectively balanced a range of important issues, from our strategic relationship with India to our non-proliferation concerns to India's energy needs," he told the magazine, which will publish the interview on Saturday.


Political Instability hovers on Indian Political galaxy this time so strong and the most contradicting scene happens to be the general belief that the UPA government would survive and the Indo US Nuclear deal is going to be operationalised whatever may come! Rather the Global ruling Class is engaged in obscene celebration of the unprecedented success in decades to have the Indian Communists made quite Irrelevant. Sensex expressed the mood very well while the Market enlivened all of a sudden after plunging into the Hell for such a long time. The Indian share Index reflected the Pro American sentiment of getting over the Marxist Barriers in the way of Continuous economic Reforms in the best interest of United states as well as the ruling Brahminical hegemony.No one but the Left is to be blamed for this crisis as they adopted the Capitalist ways to sustain its Power bases in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala as well as the Gestapo active on Grass root Level reversing its agendas of Land reforms, Peasants` movement, Trade Union Movement and rural development. Soviet demise might have worked overtime to eclipse the Ideological logic as the Communists in India seemed to believe in the Ultimate end of Communism and tried its best to cope with the New Post Modern Apartheid white Hindu Zionist Galaxy order led by the War Criminal President George Bush and his notorious gang. For long seventeen years, since the implant of Dr Manmohan Singh as finance minister of India with neo liberal policies and Agenda LPG, the Left could not recognise the urgency to launch an anti Imperialist Movement in this divided geopolitics bleeding.

The Left was over engaged in its agenda of Anti fascism targeted to RSS. On the other hand, the communists supported the gang of Four Dr Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Chidambarm and Ramoowalia as the best comradors in colonisation of India with an annihilation Indigenous Programme! The Constitution of India was being murdered. Human rights and civil rights were violated vehemently. The ruling Hegemony was translating all Rural Indigenous areas and Nationality Regions in Perfect killing fields. Left never opposed Economic Reforms and opted for Foreign capital and MNCs to create Singur and Nandigram.Peasants` movement was finished long before. The Tarde Union movement with single agenda of Economism suited best to LPG and fire and Hire situation. that trade union movement was also suspended. Strategic Military exercises were never resisted and the accountability was limited in Press statements and token protest.

These communists are in no situation to launch a nation wide Mass Movement anymore. Not even Sector wise. This helplessness of Indian Hypocrite communists resulted in floor coordination with RSS to pull down the government which they supported for more than four years!

In fact, In Indian Politics, No one dares to defy Washington Dictations these days. Defence deals, Swiss Bank accounts, CIA links have been always the breaking news for media.

United States of America is now strategically positioned to do any damn thing in Indian Ocean region and Indian Ruling Hegemony allowed it with active Zionist cooperation.

The greatest Irony of this dramatic crisis is that the Marxist anti Imperialist Campaign depends much on RSS which is the greatest agent of United States of America. So much so that it avoids to introduce a No confidence motion in the Parliament involving Indo US Nuclear deal. Rather, RSS is using this unexpected opportunity to expose the Marxists.If the UPA government stays despite Marxist Betrayal, it would wipe out the Marxists in the next Elections. RSS is well positioned to play the game of wait and see! RSS never happens to be against UNITED States Of AMERICA as it supports most the War Against Terrorism and the agenda of Zionist Super Power Hindu Nation depends so much on USA.

The role played by the Socialists may be also cited as the classic case of US influence amongst the Feudal Socialist Oxides and the Zionist Gandhian carbides. socialists have been well known to launch agitations most suitable to US interests. The socialist Total Revolution upset the apple Cart of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the most hated foe in Washington in seventies.

The taming of Mulayam, the most headstrong politician is being analysed with his relationship with the dalit supremo Mayawati. I am sure , Mulayam would not have been so soft for the Italian government without any dictation from Washington.

The Congress sought to take the high moral ground in the face of a mounting attack by the BJP and the Left parties by emphasising that if the government loses the trust vote in the Lok Sabha “it would not seek the approval of India-specific safeguards from the IAEA Board of Governors”.

The nuclear deal’s opponents have charged the government with “political deceit” for going back on its promise of approaching the IAEA only after obtaining the vote of confidence. But Congress spokespersons and officials in the Foreign Office denied any contradiction between New Delhi’s request for a meeting of the Board and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s July 8 assurance that the “government would operationalise civil nuclear cooperation and seek approval of the Board of Governors only after obtaining a vote of confidence in Parliament”.

“The letter sent to the IAEA is for a meeting of the Board and not for approval of the agreement,” a top MEA official said. Even this communication to the nuclear watchdog was made hours after the Left parties announced withdrawal of support and shot off a letter to Mukherjee on July 8.

The Minister conveyed the Left’s decision to the PM, then in the midst of the G-8 summit, around 2.30 pm IST, after which the Department of Atomic Energy, under Manmohan Singh’s charge, set the process into motion. The sources furnished this time-line with the information that Vienna was three-and-half hour behind IST.

The Left parties had, in their letter, termed as “meaningless” the proposed final meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the deal in view of the PM’s statement en route Japan that India would “very soon” approach the IAEA.

The draft safeguards agreement posted on the MEA website was dated July 7. The official explanation for it was the Indian envoy to the IAEA initialed the letter requisitioning a meeting of the Board a day before he formally handed it over to the agency.

Consequently, the draft safeguards pact that fell in the ‘classified’ category until then was distributed to the 35 Board members, and could be made public. “We took prompt action to place it on our website,” sources said. “It is wrong to interpret the request for the meeting as going to the IAEA,” added Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily. Going to the Board meant consideration of the draft agreement by the Governors at their next meeting — scheduled on July 28.

“Before that stage comes, we stand by our commitment of taking a confidence vote in the Lok Sabha,” declared Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal at a separate briefing. He said the UPA-Left mechanism to discuss the deal broke down with the communists’ decision to withdraw support. The government subsequently requested the IAEA for the meeting, in preparation of which the draft was circulated among the governors.

On the Opposition’s charge that the government invoked the IAEA on being reduced to a minority, the Congress claimed the UPA continued to enjoy a majority and would prove it on the floor of the Lok Sabha. “We do not believe in listing the numbers but in demonstrating them in the House,” said Moily.


"The US welcomes the government of India's initiative to move forward with the US-India civil nuclear deal by seeking the IAEA approval for its safeguards agreement," Mulford said in a statement here.

His statement came a day after the government made public the text of its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The US envoy said the deal would help India meet its growing energy needs "in an economically efficient and environmentally friendly manner and will strengthen the global non-proliferation regime.

"Much work still needs to be done to see this initiative through to the final stages," the envoy underlined, while calling the deal a significant component of the strategic partnership envisioned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush three years ago.

"We will work closely with India, with governors in the IAEA, with our Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) partners, and with the US Congress to ensure that this initiative is implemented as quickly as possible," he said.

The Indian government approached the IAEA secretariat in Vienna on Wednesday night to circulate the text of the safeguards pact to the agency's 35-member board for their approval.

Until a year ago, he was seen as a weak leader betrayed by his allies and manipulated by enemies, in what many Indians saw as the decline and steady fall of an erudite, honest prime minister.

Yet, when it came to the controversial nuclear deal with the United States, Manmohan Singh, 75, put his foot down to support a pact that may be one of his few lasting legacies.

That meant replacing the government's communist allies who opposed the deal with crucial parliamentary support from the regional Samajwadi Party.

Emboldened at the departure of his uneasy partners, who for the better part of his four-year tenure opposed his free market reforms, Singh now has an opportunity to get on with his economic agenda and seal his legacy.

But with national elections only months away, time is running out on him.

India's Parliament to Convene July 21-22 for Confidence Vote
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=a14uCTt9VGEw&refer=india

India's parliament will convene July 21 and 22 to decide the fate of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, which this week lost the support of Communist allies over a nuclear energy agreement with the U.S.

``The cabinet has decided to summon a special session of the Lok Sabha on July 21 and 22 to seek the vote of confidence,'' said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi in New Delhi. ``This has been communicated to the president.''

The government needs to prove it has majority support in parliament to help conclude the nuclear accord, which Singh considers crucial to secure India's energy needs. Singh has authorized the International Atomic Energy Agency to circulate to its members plans under which inspectors would get access to the country's atomic power facilities.

Four communist parties, Singh's erstwhile allies, withdrew their backing of the government, saying the deal would undermine India's sovereignty and independent foreign policy. The departure of the communists was followed by the pledge of support for Singh by the Samajwadi Party, a former rival based mostly in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The safeguards agreement with IAEA is a key condition to putting into effect the nuclear cooperation accord with the U.S., giving India access to civilian atomic technologies.

Remaining Agenda

A proof of majority may spur the government to complete an economic plan that had been blocked by the communists. The coalition will work toward fulfilling its agenda, said Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party, which heads the ruling coalition.

``I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority and work earnestly to fulfill our remaining agenda,'' Gandhi said today after meeting with allies. The government won't proceed with the nuclear agreement unless it has the support of parliament, she said.

Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party said he may back legislation easing curbs on foreign companies expanding in insurance, pensions and banking, ending a three-year deadlock.

The communists blocked Prime Minister Singh's plans to give foreign companies including American International Group Inc. and Prudential Plc a bigger role in the financial industry.

Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram says breaking the deadlock on insurance, pension and banking is his unfinished agenda before the government's term ends in May.

`Reduced to Minority'

Bills to open the pension business to overseas investors and remove a 10 percent cap on the voting rights of foreign investors in non-state banks are stalled in parliament. Chidambaram unveiled plans to raise the foreign investment ceiling for insurers to 49 percent from 26 percent in 2006.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the draft safeguards agreement had been sent to the IAEA after the government had been reduced to a minority because of the withdrawal of left support. The party will seek to make it impossible for the government to go ahead with the nuclear agreement, Prakash Karat, leader of the CPI(M), said in a televised broadcast in New Delhi yesterday.

The main federal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the National Democratic Alliance grouping, will seek to defeat the government, said party leader Venkaiah Naidu. The confidence vote would be on rising prices and terrorism and not just on the nuclear deal, he said.

India plans to separate its civilian and military nuclear plants as part of the safeguards agreement, the government said in the draft of the accord issued in New Delhi yesterday.

Strategic Reserves

The country wants to develop strategic reserves of nuclear fuel, according to the draft that the government has submitted to the international nuclear regulator. Safeguarded items won't be put to military use, India said.

Safeguards for the country's nuclear power generation plants will be applied in phases. IAEA safeguards won't hamper the country's economic development, the government said.

India needs to complete the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and reach an accord with the Nuclear Suppliers Group before the U.S. can take the treaty to Congress for approval.

Singh and President George W. Bush reaffirmed their commitment to the nuclear treaty at a meeting of the Group of Eight industrial nations summit in Toyako, Japan, earlier this week.

``Much work still needs to be done to see this initiative through to the final stages,'' David Mulford, U.S. Ambassador to India, said in an e-mailed release. ``We will work closely with India, with governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with our Nuclear Suppliers Group partners, and the United States Congress to ensure that this initiative is implemented as quickly as possible.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Cherian Thomas in New Delhi at cthomas1@bloomberg.net.

With the top Congress leadership closing ranks over the Indo-US nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday night said India is in the process of making history by going ahead with the deal.

Another highlight of the two-hour long meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the first after the Left withdrawal of support, was an attack on the Left parties by some members and veiled criticism of the Samajwadi Party by a member.

The apex policy making body of the party, which also heard External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, endorsed the deal and the Government's decision to seek a trust vote.

Presided over by party chief Sonia Gandhi with the Prime Minister by her side, the meeting saw several members, including Rahul Gandhi, asserting that there was no need to be defensive on the deal.

Sources said Singh told the meeting that "we are in the process of making history" as the deal was a unique achievement and that was why many countries, including Pakistan, have not liked it.

Even western media was going to town impressing that India has got away very easily "without paying the price".

Rahul Gandhi reportedly said that the deal was in the national interest and if the Government falls on the issue then it is out of bad luck.

The sources said that Karan Singh and Saifuddin Soz were critical of the Left parties with the former accusing them of indulging in blackmail.

Soz's target of attack was CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat. The Union Minister was a member of the UPA-Left committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal of which Karat was also a member.

They said at the outset, AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwiwedi spoke of the damage to the party due to the alliances and coalitions it made. His comment was in the backdrop of the SP giving support to the coalition at the Centre when the Left has walked out.

His contention was that tying up at the Centre with political rivals in the states harms the party because it fails to take them head on.

Another party General Secretary Mohsina Kidwai cautioned against attempts by BSP's Mayawati as also Left to go in for a "communal" campaign.

When a member said that constitutionally there was no need to take a trust vote, Mukherjee said that politically it was necessary. "We do not want to give any opportunity to our opponents".

UPA will win the trust vote on July 22: CWC

In the two-hour meeting, Congress Working Committee endorsed the decision of the government to seek a trust vote.

"The CWC supported the decision taken by the government to seek a trust vote. It also expressed confidence and determination to win the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha," Congress media department chief and CWC member M Veerappa Moily told reporters after the meeting.

The United States said on Thursday it would seek to push a nuclear trade deal with India past international and domestic hurdles with time running out before a deadline set by U.S. elections in November.

India and the United States must win clearances from U.N. atomic watchdog governors and a 45-nation group that controls sensitive nuclear trade, then ratification by the U.S. Congress for the three-year-old nuclear deal to take force.

After prolonged delay caused by a governing coalition split over the deal, India took the first step toward implementing it on Wednesday by submitting a draft plan for inspections of its civilian nuclear reactors to the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation Board of Governors in Vienna.

The deal has drawn controversy since India is outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), tested nuclear bombs in 1974 and 1998 and says the accord will not curb its military nuclear program -- including the right to more tests if needed.

"We welcome India's willingness to move forward with this historic initiative, which is part of the strategic partnership envisioned by President (George W.) Bush and Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh," said Gregory Schulte, U.S. envoy to the IAEA.

"The initiative will help strengthen the global (nuclear) non-proliferation regime and help India meet its growing energy demands in an environmentally friendly way," he told reporters.

"There is much that needs to be done. The next step is IAEA board review ... We will work with India, our Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) partners and the U.S. Congress to ensure the initiative is implemented as expeditiously as possible."


World economy between recession and inflation - IMFBy Sabina Zawadzki

YALTA, Ukraine (Reuters) - The world's economy is teetering between "the ice of recession and the fire of inflation", but may see some recovery by early next year, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Friday.

Addressing a conference in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort of Yalta, Strauss-Kahn characterised the economic situation as the "first crisis of the 21st century" made up of soaring inflation and a financial market crisis. But the crisis was receding.

"No one can say that the world economy is at a good temperature," he said.

"We are just between the ice of recession and the fire of inflation," he said, adding that soaring energy and food costs had topped the agenda of a meeting of leaders of G8 industrialised countries in Japan.

Strauss-Kahn said U.S. growth in the first quarter was better than expected at 0.9 percent, but anticipated a global economic recovery only in the first or second quarter of 2009.

The world economic order, he said, was rendered more unpredictable by the fact that the financial crisis originated in the United States amid doubts over low standard mortgages.

"It was the strongest economy and it was on the top of the pyramid of power," he said. "What happened now is that the pyramid is a bit upside down. It is no longer a pyramid of risk."

Although the worst of the financial market crisis was over, more challenges lay ahead.
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-34478820080711



All these years the Communist Party leaders have said that they were trying to keep U.S. influence at bay and protect India's poor from ruthless foreign enterprises by blocking a deal on nuclear energy with the United States.Critics of the Communists put it a little differently, arguing that they are engaging in political obstructionism in hopes of developing closer ties with China - at the expense of the same rural underclass they claim to represent. The Communists, with enough seats in Parliament to force an election at any time, have staunchly rejected the deal - which would allow India to buy U.S. nuclear energy technology without giving up...

Indian communists that provided the government with a parliamentary majority for four years have withdrawn their support over a controversial civilian nuclear deal with the United States.

The government will announce the date for a confidence vote on Friday as it fights for survival after its communist allies withdrew their support to protest against a U.S. nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, BJP on Friday stepped up its opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal alleging "sweeping" military and defence implications of the draft India specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The main opposition also sought to poke holes in government claims that India has been given a favoured status by the US and said it was a routine agreement with any non-nuclear state.

Addressing reporters in New Delhi, party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed the draft also undermined the nuclear weapon state status of the country.

"It is not an India specific agreement. It is a routine agreement and India has not been treated as a Nuclear Weapon state," he said.

The agreement, if materialised will have sweeping implications on India's military and defence programme, he added.

The United States on Friday welcomed India's decision to move forward with the civilian nuclear deal by seeking International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approval for its safeguards agreement and assured that Washington would work closely with the IAEA, the NSG and the (US) Congress to see the initiatives are quickly implemented.


State department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the US was looking forward to taking up the issues related to the nuclear deal with the UN atomic watchdog and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.


He did refer to time constraints, though, but added that the US was fully committed to doing everything it can to conclude this agreement. McCormack referred to both the IAEA and the NSG as not directly under US control, as India has barely begun the IAEA process. He underscored that time is needed for the waiver from the NSG.


Earlier, Congressman Gary Ackerman had called upon India to complete the IAEA and NSG process by August if the nuclear deal was to have any hope of winning Congressional approval this year.


US Ambassador to India David C Mulford promised US cooperation on the deal but said “much work is still needed.”

BJP claimed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assurance to the Parliament on March 7 last year has not been honoured as per the draft.

"There is nothing like what the Prime Minister had assured. His assurances have not been honoured by his own government. There is no clause to ensure perpetual supply of fuel," Prasad said.

The Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) can block the supply anytime and no remedial measure is being defined in the draft, he added.

The saffron party also claimed that the draft "lacks clarity on how India can come out of the deal."

The party would be coming out with a structured response on the draft later, Prasad said.

Indian industrial output grew at its slowest rate in six years in May, but a jump in inflation to nearly 12 percent made it unlikely weakening growth would persuade the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to hold off with interest rate rises.

The central bank's tightening campaign to tame price pressures stoked by soaring oil costs bit into consumption and capital goods production in the $1 trillion economy, casting doubt over official forecasts for 8.0-8.5 percent economic growth this fiscal year.

But economists saw no respite on rates even after two increases in June, given that inflation has more than tripled over the past six months, raising the spectre of a backlash against the government at elections due by May 2009.

The vote is expected to take place on either July 21 or July 22, a spokesman at the prime minister's office said, but a final decision will come after a cabinet meeting later on Friday.

A regional party has stepped in to replace the communists who opposed the deal as harmful to India, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government still needs the support of smaller parties and independent lawmakers to survive the confidence vote.

The government will fall if it loses the vote, triggering early elections and damaging chances of the deal.

The deal would be a landmark for India's relations with the West. It allows India access to U.S. civilian nuclear fuel and technology although it has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998.

Critics say the deal reverses 30 years of U.S. policy opposing nuclear cooperation with India after it developed nuclear weapons.

Trying to cobble a parliamentary majority, government allies met on Friday with potential supporting parties, many of who are keen to avoid polls at a time when inflation is at a record high.

"I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority," Sonia Gandhi, the ruling Congress party head and India's most powerful politician, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.


The government will seek a confidence motion to prove its parliamentary majority. They need to reach the 272-member mark in the 543 member lower house of parliament to have a majority.

The parliamentary vote will probably be held in the next two weeks.

Here is a look at political parties and their numbers, according to the latest figures available at the Indian parliament's website (http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/) and to party officials.

The coalition building has only just started ahead of the no-confidence vote. These numbers could possibly change as negotiations between parties continue.

PRO-GOVERNMENT - 268 seats

* United Progressive Alliance - 226 members. The UPA is made up of Congress party with 153 members, the northern Indian regional party Rashtriya Janata Dal with 24 members, and the southern Indian party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam with 16 members. The alliance also includes another nine smaller parties.

The UPA also has the support of the northern Indian party Rashtriya Lok Dal, which has three members. It is outside the government alliance but supports the government.

* Samajwadi Party - 39 members. This regional party from northern India holds the balance of power. They will replace the Communists, supporting the government.
Some local media say a rebellion is brewing in the party over supporting the nuclear deal and at least six lawmakers could switch sides.

SMALL AND INDEPENDENT PARTIES - 28 seats.

* There are 28 independents and smaller parties, including the southern Kerala Congress with two, the Mizo National Front with one and others whose stand and votes could prove crucial.

THE OPPOSITION - 247 seats

* Communist parties - 59 members. The four parties may vote against the government in parliament during a vote of no-confidence or could abstain from voting to keep a minority government standing as they don't want an early election.

* The National Democratic Alliance - 171 members - This opposition alliance is led by India's main opposition group, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has 130 lawmakers.

* The regional caste-based Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has 17 members and recently withdrew support to the ruling government.

(Compiled by Bappa Majumdar and Surojit Gupta; Editing by Alistair Scrutton) (For the latest Reuters news on India see: in.reuters.com, for blogs see blogs.reuters.com/in/)

CIA has India surpassing Europe in 15 yearsNews
A new CIA report titled ‘Mapping the Global Future’ projects that India will overtake major European countries by GDP within 15 years:

By 2020, China’s gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services, will be greater than that of any Western country except the United States, and India’s GDP will have overtaken or will be about to overtake European economies.
The National Intelligence Council, a division of the CIA, makes some very interesting comparisons:

… the NIC said China and India, probably along with Brazil and Indonesia, should emerge as “new major global players,” comparing their expected impact to that of a united Germany in the 19th century and the United States in the early 20th century. “In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the ‘American Century,’ the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own…”
The NIC is confident in its projections:

“Barring an abrupt reversal of the process of globalization or any major upheavals in these countries, the rise of these new powers (China and India) is a virtual certainty,” it predicted.
There will be a geopolitical realignment…

As India’s economy grows, governments in Southeast Asia — Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and other countries — may move closer to India to help build a potential geopolitical counterweight to China, it said… Dubbing China, India, and perhaps others such as Brazil and Indonesia, as ‘arriviste’ powers, the report said they “have the potential to render obsolete the old categories of East and West, North and South, aligned and nonaligned, developed and developing.”


… an expansion of military power…

“A combination of sustained high economic growth, expanding military capabilities, and large populations will be at the root of the expected rapid rise in economic and military power for both countries.”
… and a cultural realignment as well:

Changes will be experienced… even culturally, as Korean pop singers gain international popularity and India’s Bollywood movie industry outshines Hollywood.
The full report says it’s possible India could overtake China as well, but unlikely:

… China’s ability to sustain its current pace is probably more at risk than is India’s; should China’s growth slow by several percentage points, India could emerge as the world’s fastest-growing economy as we head towards 2020.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000940.html

PM to Prez: Will seek confidence vote at earliest
Saroj Nagi, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, July 10, 2008

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will seek a vote of confidence “as early as possible” in response to the Left’s withdrawal of support to the UPA on the India-US civil nuclear agreement.

According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communiqué issued after the PM called on President Pratibha Patil on Thursday evening, the PM told Patil that “he and his cabinet colleagues (were) keen to seek a vote of confidence as early as possible.” The PM spent 30 minutes with the President. The communique was based on a letter he handed to her.

The Congress is breathing a little easy with the 39-member SP on board. It is assiduously cultivating smaller parties and individual MPs to either support the confidence motion or to abstain or absent themselves.The PM will communicate the exact date of the trust vote to the President on Friday. There was speculation on Thursday that the government may choose a date around July 22 to call a special Lok Sabha session for the vote. Though the date will be finalised only after meetings of the UPA and the Congress Working Committee (CWC), coalition MPs have been asked to be in Delhi by July 22. This will be the first time since the beginning of the coalition era in 1989 that a PM will seek a trust vote after four years in office — six PMs before Singh faced trust votes inside their first couple of years.

The UPA coordination committee meets on Friday morning; the CWC in the evening. Both meetings, to be presided by Sonia Gandhi in her capacity as UPA chairperson and Congress president respectively, will seek to project a picture of unity in the party and the UPA against the backdrop of the Left’s withdrawal of support to the government.

The PM, who returned from Japan shortly after midnight Wednesday, met with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and the Congress Core Group.

The UPA and the CWC will also consider the report sent to Sonia by Mukherjee on the UPA-Left consultations on the deal that came to an abrupt end with the Left’s July 8 decision to call it quits.

The Congress is breathing a little easy with the 39-member SP on board. It is assiduously cultivating smaller parties and individual MPs to either support the confidence motion or to abstain or absent themselves.

Two SP MPs who are estranged from their party leadership, Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma, have already met Sonia Gandhi and committed their support.

Union Minister Kapil Sibal appealed to all parties including the BJP, JD(U) and Akali Dal to support the deal.

On his part, following an NDA meeting, Leader of the Opposition LK Advani expressed hope that a majority would vote against the government.

Advani, however, ruled out any floor coordination with the Left on the issue.

Shocking betrayal of commitment, cries Left

Jatin Gandhi, Hindustan Times
Email Author
New Delhi, July 11, 2008

The left on Thursday launched another scathing attack on the UPA government, after the IAEA said that the draft safeguards agreement was circulated among its board members on India's request, dubbing the move as a "shocking betrayal" of the commitment made to the country.

Left leaders said they did not doubt External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee's integrity, but the government's move had made his position "untenable". Mukherjee had announced that the government would approach the IAEA only after it secures a trust vote. On Wednesday night the IAEA announced that the agreement's text was sent to the Board of Governors after India made a request.

“This is a blatant violation of the assurance given by the government, a betrayal of the moral commitment to the country. What transpired in the meeting of the PM with President Bush, which led to this going back on a public pledge? The prime minister owes an answer to the people and the country,” Karat said.

“In less than 24 hours, when the country knows that the government is reduced to a minority, the text (of the IAEA agreement) has been submitted,” he said.

The Left leaders, addressing the media just a day after parting ways with the Congress-led government, used the opportunity to remind the Congress that its move could be cause for another embarrassment for Mukherjee — one of the party’s senior leaders.

“There is no reason to doubt the integrity of Mukherjee who said that he had consulted the prime minister before telling the nation that the government would seek a confidence vote,” Karat said.

CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan said, “Twice he had said something and twice the government did something else. He wrote a letter on July 10 but before anything could be done, the prime minister went on air saying that the government would move IAEA. Then again he made a solemn commitment that the government would not proceed to the Board of Governors of the IAEA till it proves its majority,” he said.

The government and the Congress, till Wednesday, were maintaining that the draft agreement is classified. "We got this text from various American websites. This is the plight of the country," Karat said. The text of the agreement was put out by the government on the MEA and the PIB websites on Thursday.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?sectionName=&id=bbbbac51-a0e3-47ed-9ff4-a9b4d4a4c102Nucleardealimbroglio_Special&MatchID1=4725&TeamID1=2&TeamID2=3&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1191&PrimaryID=4725&Headline=Shocking+betrayal+of+commitment%2c+cries+Left



The question that comes to mind is that " Is Musharraf fighting Terrorism or is he fighting India?". While India offered to join the fight against terrorism because it is a victim of terrorism itself, Pakistan has done so as a reaction that if it does not do so, then India will certainly do so; and that will be the nemesis of Pakistan.One remote possibility that we still cling on to is that the Pakistani President has a Kemalist outlook at the bottom of his heart. This may not be correct. But let us assume that it is. If it is so then the present situation is a boon to fight out the Jihadi forces which are inimical to reform. Kemal Ataturk of Turkey (from whom President Musharraf is said to take inspiration) had to fight a violent internal battle; before he could reform Turkey into a modern progressive nation that it is today. Ataturk had to emasculate Islam.The candidates for a fierce and desperately violent anti-American war within Pakistan are the Al Badr, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Laskhkar-e-Tayyaba, Laskhkar-e-Jhangvi, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammedi, and other private rogue armies, over which the Pakistani leaders have been claiming since the days of the Kargil crisis; that they has no control over.

The coming days could prove how much control they do have. And if they really have no control over these private rogue armies operating openly in Pakistan, the Americans would have their hands full with fighting in Pakistan itself. President Musharraf would be well advised to prepare counter measures right now to face this scenario and pre-empt the Pakistani Jihadis.

Thursday, Mar 17, 2005

In publicly expressing her concerns about the Iran-India gas pipeline during her press conference here on Wednesday, the visiting United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, made it clear that India's energy security and the Indo-U.S. "strategic partnership" will matter less to Washington than its policy of isolating and undermining the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dr. Rice also dropped a broad hint that the Indian aspiration for a greater role in international affairs would be better served not through reform of the United Nations — and a permanent seat in the Security Council — but through ad hoc U.S.-led multilateral initiatives such as the controversial and short-lived "core group" set up by Washington in the wake of last year's tsunami.

13 Jun, 2008

WASHINGTON: Changing tunes, the US on Friday said India's influence is the "healthiest" part of global trade talks and New Delhi should shoulder bigger responsibility for ensuring success of the Doha Round.

"The healthiest and the most positive aspect of the Doha Round is the presence and influence of countries like India and Brazil," US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said at the US India Business Council (USIBC) anniversary function here.

Schwab's remarks are in contrast to comments made by a senior official in the Bush Administration who had earlier this week said India has been a roadblock in the success of Doha negotiations.

India submits atom pact for IAEA approval
9 Jul, 2008, 2140 hrs IST, REUTERS

VIENNA: India's draft nuclear safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency has been given to the IAEA's board of governors for approval, the UN watchdog said on Wednesday.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the pact, a key condition for putting a US-India nuclear cooperation treaty into effect, had been circulated to the agency's 35-nation board after India's government gave the green light for the move.

India, US on way to formal pact on investments
9 Jul, 2008, 0244 hrs IST,Deepshikha Sikarwar, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: India and the US have decided to launch formal negotiations for a bilateral investment agreement.

Both sides have held two rounds of exploratory talks and are keen to start work on a formal framework. India has bilateral investment promotion agreements (Bipa) with most of its key trading partners, including Australia, the UK, France, Germany and Russia. US is the only key partner with which it does not have an agreement.

New Delhi has a standard model for a Bipa which is slightly conservative. The US bilateral investment treaty, on the other hand, is very ambitious under which US investors get national treatment or most-favoured-nation treatment when they initiate investment, and throughout the life of the investment.

Government sources said New Delhi would be willing to upgrade the investment agreement and incorporate certain provisions the US agreements seeks to put in a treaty.

US, on its part, is ready to pare its ambition to certain extent and would indicate the dates for formal talks on the treaty. New Delhi, however, may not agree to inclusion of labour or environment standards in the agreement that it has been vehemently opposing at the global trade negotiations.

Moreover, it would be difficult for India to go in for pre-establishment phase of investment under which a foreign investor can avail protection even as he is in the process of establishing business and seek compensation. US had tried to push such a clause in its treaty with Pakistan.

A quick agreement is ruled out in the wake of such differences and also because of the US elections. Sources, however, said the issues would be thrashed during negotiations.

In the second round of exploratory talks that were held in June, both sides had discussions on the existing foreign direct investment regime in both the countries.

NPT Anniversary
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008


It is fitting that progress on disarmament talks with North Korea has been made this week as this also marks another important milestone, the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forty years ago this week. The treaty created a framework for countries to pledge not to seek nuclear weapons and for existing nuclear powers to pledge to work toward disarmament. Most countries in the world have signed the treaty (including the U.S.), three have not (Israel, Pakistan, and India) and one dropped out (North Korea). Progress is now being made with North Korea, the U.S. is negotiating a deal with India (actually the deal is done but domestic politics in India threatens to derail the deal), Israel remains a “secret” nuclear power (their approach is called strategic ambiguity or opacity, it’s designed to keep their neighbors guessing), and Pakistan, well there are major issues there to address but they seem to have been tabled by the war, at least for the time being. The treaty remains both relevant and timely, when you hear Iran assert their right to develop peaceful nuclear power, that right is enshrined in the NPT Treaty. For more information on this important treaty, I refer you to the Nuclear Vault maintained by the National Security Archive.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:DbgjGFL0qZwJ:usrole.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/+US+Role+in+India&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=91&gl=in

Politics of India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Politics of India takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary multi-party representative democratic republic modelled after the British Westminster System. The Prime Minister of India is the head of government, while the President of India is the formal head of state and holds substantial reserve powers, placing him or her in approximately the same position as the British monarch. Executive power is exercised by the government. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Parliament of India. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

According to its constitution, India is a "sovereign socialist secular democratic republic." India is the largest state by population with a democratically-elected government. Like the United States, India has a federal form of government, however, the central government in India has greater power in relation to its states, and its central government is patterned after the British parliamentary system. Regarding the former, "the Centre", the national government, can and has dismissed state governments if no majority party or coalition is able to form a government or under specific Constitutional clauses, and can impose direct federal rule known as President's rule. Locally, the Panchayati Raj system has several administrative functions.


The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) sought assistance from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in january 2008, about the US space agency’s role in India’s manned mission to space. Isro chairman G. Madhavan Nair had to sign an agreement with Nasa administrator Michael Griffin on cooperation, exploration and the use of outer space for peaceful purposes even as India steps up its focus on the exploration of the solar system, beginning with an unmanned mission to the moon in April.Analysts say India has been one of the 14 countries discussing international collaboration in human missions to the moon and beyond.Both space agencies had signed a bilateral framework agreement for cooperation in earth and atmospheric sciences in 1997, but this has been in cold storage after India’s nuclear tests in 1998. The agreement was revived in 2006.Isro plans to send two or three astronauts in a capsule that will be placed in orbit by a homegrown heavy GSLV rocket and expects to spend Rs10,000 crore on the mission. Though it has set a deadline of 2014 for this project, Isro is yet to get the government nod for the manned space flight programme.

In American Mind set up, a question hovers over the United States' blooming friendship with India: How good a friend will India be should it emerge as a great power?

Anand Giridharadas writes well in his article `What role for emerging India as a U.S. ally?’ inInternational herald tribune. Published: February 7, 2007(http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/07/news/air.php)

Will it be a Britain — a loyal ally, a partner against terrorism, a fellow evangelist for free markets and democracy? Or will it be France — sharing Washington's bedrock values but ever willing to pursue its own interests at the expense of American ones?

Or will it be China — a competitive threat to the U.S. economy, using its influence to thwart American diplomatic pressure on nations like Sudan and Iran?

This week, government officials and military-hardware makers from the United States will be looking for clues to India's strategic intentions as they attempt to break new ground. At an air show outside the technology hub of Bangalore, they are seeking to sell American-made warplanes to India, which has never before bought them.

Anand Giridharadas wrote:

Around the time that deal was struck, American officials often talked up India as the new Britain, a natural ally whose growing clout was an unmitigated good for the United States. But a year and a half later, India has shown a tendency to chart an unpredictable diplomatic course, whether by cozying up to the rulers of Myanmar, Sudan and Iran or by stalling on its promises to open its economy fully to American corporate giants like Wal-Mart, AIG and Citibank.

And so the hawking of aircraft in India is more than just a commercial push: It is also a chance to decipher what kind of partner India will be.

"To the extent the U.S. government is looking for clues, they come from military sales contracts and from the process leading up to them," said Teresita Schaffer, a former chief of the South Asia desk at the U.S. State Department and now an India scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The U.S. government does see military sales as an essential ingredient in a serious security relationship."

The Pentagon has authorized the largest-ever deployment of display aircraft to the subcontinent. India is expected to open a tender this year for 126 new fighter jets to modernize its fleet, and the Americans are hoping that their new friendship with Delhi will give the F/A-18F Super Hornet, built by Boeing, and the F-16, built by Lockheed Martin, an edge over the Russian MIG warplanes that have long dominated the Indian Air Force fleet.

To counter Russia's historical advantage, Boeing has offered to produce the F/A-18F jointly with an Indian company. Lockheed scored public-relations points by recruiting Ratan Tata, a billionaire Indian industrialist and amateur pilot, to fly in an F-16 at the air show.

The Americans are also peddling Chinook choppers, C-130 Hercules transport planes and the P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft, and the American companies sending representatives to Bangalore this week include Boeing, Lockheed, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney. They will join hundreds of companies from 28 countries, according to the Indo-Asian news service.

American defense companies regard India as a $30 billion opportunity over five years, one leader of the American delegation, William Cohen, a former U.S. defense secretary, told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.

But it is an open question whether Indians see themselves as the kind of loyal allies that American officials envision when they make such projections.

On paper, India seems a natural U.S. ally. As Cohen wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week, echoing a widely held view in Washington, India and the United States are "multiethnic and secular democracies" with "shared values, interests and objectives" and, he added, "ideal partners in exerting a positive influence in the 21st century."

Signs of new cooperation abound: Trade and investment are flourishing.

Military exercises between the United States and India are becoming more frequent. India is playing an important and little-noticed role in post- Taliban reconstruction in Afghanistan. And New Delhi, more than most other major capitals, is generally warm to the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, given its own battles with Islamic extremists. But as India has accrued ever more influence in recent years, it has not always spent it in ways helpful to Washington.



The four day visit between the Indian External Affairs Minister and his Chinese counterpart in June 2008 highlighted the cooperative dimension of Sino-Indian relations, built on expanding trade and a relatively peaceful border. But the competitive aspect of India-China relations is alive and well, marked by different views of Asia, Indian concerns about China’s eventual security goals in the Indian Ocean, and Chinese suspicions of India-U.S. relations. From the U.S. point of view, both are essential players in shaping a peaceful Asia.

The world's two largest democracies were on frosty terms during the Cold War, and India relied for most of its military firepower on Soviet imports. But with times changing, particularly after the 9/11 attacks highlighted common security interests, the leaders of the two nations declared in July 2005 that they were warming their ties into a strategic partnership. At the heart of the new bond is a civilian nuclear deal, recently enacted as law in Washington, that lifts constraints on India's purchases of nuclear fuel for its civilian reactors and frees American companies to sell sensitive technologies to India.



A little more than four decades ago, the United States was India's biggest and most influential foreign aid partner, proudly helping to construct power plants, factories, university campuses and other symbols of modernization in the world's most populous democracy.

But in 1988, as a result of aid cuts in several stages, the United States was the ninth most generous donor to India in the non-Communist world. Japan, which was the biggest donor, would give $1.2 billion in 1988 in direct loans or grants, more than twelve times the amount from Washington.

The diminished American status in India had come in steps since the late 1960's, and it was mitigated by Washington's role as the biggest contributor to the World Bank and other global lending agencies that supply billions of dollars in credit to India each year.

Yet, stung by criticism for its sharp cut in direct aid, Washington had in effect had to search for a new role for itself as an economic power in India. As a result, it had come to stress other strategies, stirring new questions about what is the most effective way to channel aid to the developing world.

In 1987, under pressure to reduce the Federal deficit, Congress slashed direct economic development aid to India to $24 million, less than a third of the level a few years before and a tiny fraction of the level decades ago. Some members of Parliament reacted by calling for a shutdown of the entire aid program, but then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi rebuffed the idea.

Mr. Gandhi, an Indian Prime minister for the first time, just before Nara simha rao who with Dr manmohan singh as finance minister reversed the soviet model of development and the great alliance of strategic equations with United states began,sought to improve ties with the United States, not least because of Washington's influence at the World Bank and other lending agencies.

The immediate result was that the United States also became India's biggest source of private foreign investment - $500 million in American money has been invested since the 1950's - and Washington had been more forthcoming on licenses for high-technology items in military and other fields.

Since independence in 1947, India became industrialized and it achieved a large measure of self-sufficiency in food. The United States contributed $12 billion in aid since 1947 to 1988, and the Soviet Union $6 billion, according to American estimates. U.S. to End Projects


CIRUS REACTOR’S ROLE

IN A U.S.-INDIA NUCLEAR AGREEMENT



Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute

Presentation to

Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Washington, DC

December 19, 2005
http://www.nci.org/06nci/04/CIRUS%20Reactors%20Role%20in%20a%20US-India%20Nuclear.htm


It is fair to say that were it were not for the CIRUS reactor---and the uncovering of the secret US role in supplying the heavy-water moderator that India used in the reactor to produce the plutonium for its 1974 test---there would not have been a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act.



There would not have been its statutory requirement for full-scope safeguards as a condition of nuclear supply.



And there would not be today the international norm of comprehensive safeguards embodied in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which is based on the US law.



So CIRUS holds a very special place in nonproliferation history and the development of US nonproliferation policy. This needs to be understood if we are to do the right thing in working out a new nuclear relationship with India.

My own personal involvement in this history and policy began with a telephone call I received 31 years ago on a May morning in 1974 when I was a young staffer on the U.S. Senate Government Operations Committee. It was from a Congressional liaison officer of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission who said he was calling to inform me that India had just conducted a nuclear test and to assure me that "the United States had absolutely nothing to do with it."

At that time, I was working on legislation to reorganize the AEC into separate regulatory and promotional agencies. I had begun investigating the weapons potential of nuclear materials being used in the U.S. Atoms for Peace program, both at home and abroad. The official wanted me to know there was no need to consider remedial legislation on nuclear exports because the plutonium used in India's test came not from the safeguarded nuclear power plant at Tarapur, supplied by the United States, but from the unsafeguarded Cirus research reactor near Bombay, supplied by Canada. "This is a Canadian problem, not ours," he said.

It took me two years to discover that the information provided me that day was false. The United States, in fact, had supplied the essential heavy-water component that made the Cirus reactor operable, but decided to cover up the American supplier role and let Canada "take the fall" for the Indian test. Canada promptly cut off nuclear exports to India, but the United States did not.

In 1976, when the Senate committee uncovered the U.S. heavy-water export to India and confronted the State Department on it, the government's response was another falsehood: the heavy water supplied by the U.S., it said, had leaked from the reactor at a rate of 10% a year, and had totally depleted over 10 years by the time India produced the plutonium for its test.

But the committee learned from Canada that the actual heavy-water loss rate at Cirus was less than 1% a year, and we learned from junior-high-school arithmetic that even a 10%- a-year loss rate doesn't equal 100% after 10 years. Actually, more than 90% of the original U.S. heavy water was still in the Cirus reactor after 10 years, even if it took India a decade to produce the test plutonium---itself a highly fanciful notion.

We also learned that the reprocessing plant where India had extracted the plutonium from Cirus spent fuel, described as "indigenous" in official U.S. and Indian documents, in fact had been supplied by an elaborate and secret consortium of U.S. and European companies.

Faced with this blatant example of the Executive Branch taking Congress for the fool, the Senate committee drafted and Congress eventually enacted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. And the rest, as they say, is history.



I am by no means convinced that we today need a new nuclear relationship with India, short of India formally committing to roll back its nuclear weapons, South Africa style, at such time as there’s a settlement with Pakistan on Kashmir---and committing also to join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state at that time.



There seems to be little support for such an approach, and I’m sure much angst over even giving voice to such an impolitic proposal.



So, for the moment at least, I will focus on the current push for a nuclear cooperation agreement with India, and the way the CIRUS reactor should be treated in it.



The prospective nuclear cooperation agreement will establish India as a de facto nuclear weapons state, which is just as good as a de jure nuclear weapons state if de facto status comes without penalties and with full access to imported nuclear reactors, fuel and fuel-cycle technology.



This would be a sweet deal for India, but a body blow to the non-proliferation regime, so-called.



Country specialists in the US always seem willing to sacrifice non-proliferation on the altar of normalized relations with the country in question. This has been especially so for India.



Victor Gilinsky and I discussed this problem in an op-ed article we co-authored in the Washington Post soon after the Indian tests of 1998. We noted that “[i]n the history of U.S.-India relations, nothing stands out so much as India’s constancy in pursuing nuclear bomb-making and America’s nearsightedness about Indian intentions. India fought to weaken the charter of the new International Atomic Energy Agency in the 1950s. It was duplicitous in carrying out Atoms for Peace agreements in the 1960s. It undermined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with its “peaceful” bomb of 1974.



“Despite this history, each new generation of American policymakers thinks that by being a little more accommodating it will gain Indian restraint and acceptance of nuclear controls. The Indians (they are not alone in this) have for a long time played on that characteristically American self-deception that stems from a mix of idealism and commercial greed. It is not surprising that the Indians expect that game to continue.”



And as we can see from today’s fevered negotiations to normalize US-India relations by putting old nuclear disputes to rest, the game does continue. But nonproliferation must be given more than hortatory treatment in any nuclear agreement with India.



In 1974, the U.S. bent over backwards not to confront India on Indian use of U.S. heavy water to produce plutonium for its test. It covered up the U.S. role in CIRUS, and Congress reacted angrily after the role was uncovered. The end result was the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978. Today, the U.S. government appears to be preparing for a repeat performance on CIRUS, only this time the end result may be an agreement that allows India to turn an Atoms for Peace reactor into a declared military production plant. I cannot think of anything more damaging to U.S. nonproliferation credibility and security interests. Such an outcome will surely embolden Iran and North Korea to apply their civilian nuclear programs to weapons purposes.



Angry Congressional reaction to discovering America’s role in India’s 1974 test was enactment of the 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. Its basic reforms---requiring full-scope safeguards as a condition of nuclear fuel and reactor exports, and requiring case-by-case approval of reprocessing spent fuel---so out of step with galloping global nuclear commerce at the time, have since been incorporated into the international rules of the road through the Nuclear Suppliers Group.



These reforms were made possible because CIRUS helped exposed major flaws in the non-proliferation regime.



Article III.2 of the NPT was interpreted to allow NPT parties to export to non-parties without full-scope safeguards so long as the individual transfer was subject to safeguards.


CIRUS predated the NPT and the treaty’s safeguards requirements. But the reactor was subject to “peaceful uses only” contracts with Canada and the US and thus exposed the ability of a country to blatantly misuse a civilian, Atoms for Peace reactor to produce plutonium for weapons. It also exposed the fact that unrestricted reprocessing of spent fuel could produce plutonium for weapons. The case was made for applying controls on reprocessing after we learned that India’s so-called “indigenous” reprocessing plant, which separated plutonium from CIRUS spent fuel, had actually been the work of a secret consortium of U.S and European suppliers.

.

CIRUS also exposed the extent bureaucracy will go to cover its rear end at time of supreme embarrassment.



Lessons learned from CIRUS:



1. Don’t enter into a new agreement until violations of past agreements have been corrected.



2. You don’t tighten the NPT regime by punching holes in it.



What needs to be done:



1. CIRUS must be declared a civilian facility, as should all power reactors in India---imported and indigenous.



2. All plutonium produced by CIRUS should be placed under safeguards, or, if that’s impractical because most CIRUS plutonium is imbedded in warheads,



3. An equivalent amount of plutonium from India’s indigenous Dhruva research reactor should be substituted for the CIRUS plutonium and placed under safeguards.



4. The fact that India refurbished CIRUS and presumably substituted its own heavy water does not change the situation. Had India shut CIRUS down and replaced it with an indigenous production reactor, that would be a different situation, at least as far as future plutonium production is concerned. But it refurbished CIRUS at a fraction of the cost of building a new production reactor. So, the principal of contamination vs. proportionality should apply. The reactor was “contaminated” by the original peaceful use commitments made to Canada and the U.S. Peaceful use is not proportional to the extent of refurbishment or to the percentage of original heavy water remaining in the reactor. (Superphenix precedent)



Conclusion:



If India is not prepared to make good on its original peaceful-use commitments on CIRUS, the U.S. should not enter into an agreement for nuclear cooperation with India. Continued military operation of CIRUS should be a show-stopper, as far as the United States is concerned.

The U.S. Role in India's Tests
By Richard N. Haass, Director, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution
The Washington Times -- May 14, 1998
http://www.indianembassy.org/pic/usmedia/haass.htm
India's nuclear weapons tests pose a major dilemma to the Clinton administration. It is important that the United States react -- but not overreact. India has
confronted us with a challenge, but not as yet a catastrophe. Our goal must be to see that none comes about.

India's decision to detonate five nuclear devices for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century removes much of the veneer shrouding its nuclear weapons
program. Still, India remains a de facto nuclear weapons state -- only more explicitly than was the case a week ago.

The tests reportedly came as a surprise to U.S. officials. But this action was consistent with India's longstanding refusal to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation
Treaty, its attempt to block the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the political platform of the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party.

The motivation for going ahead with tests at this time likely reflected a desire to develop warheads that could fit on India's growing missile inventory. The tests also
appear to be a message to both China and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear programs of their own. One should also not rule out the possibility that the tests
were a political statement by a country that has always rejected and resented being left outside the nuclear club.

The U.S. need to react negatively is obvious, lest we communicate the message to other would-be nuclear weapon states that there is no cost if they go down this
path. It would also be harder for us to build international support against Iraq's or Iran's nuclear program if we were seen to look the other way on this occasion.
But it is no less important to keep our powder dry. There are worse outcomes than India or even Pakistan testing nuclear devices. These include a decision by
China to resume nuclear testing (which would leave the Test Ban Treaty stillborn) or, even more seriously, India and Pakistan racing to field a significant number of missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

As a result, we should direct the lion's share of our efforts to preventing major instability in South Asia. The goal should be to discourage additional testing by
anyone and to establish a new plateau -- one that does not involve actual deployment of Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons. It is also important that we act to
preserve the U.S.-India relationship. What is at stake here are ties with a country with a billion people, a large and growing market and a robust democracy.
Isolating India will not serve U.S. economic or strategic interests; nor would it weaken a government that has taken a step applauded by most Indians, who wonder why the world is prepared to live with China's nuclear arsenal but not India's.

What, then, should the United States do? We should work to build international support for narrow sanctions that target the immediate problem -- namely India's
nuclear and missile programs -- but that do not go so far as to turn a friend in to a foe. It is difficult to see how the same sanctions that fail to deter India from testing will now cause it to back away from a nuclear weapons option.

Just as important is what we do not do. The United States ought not to cancel diplomatic contacts with India; recalling our Ambassador is a natural but not necessarily wise reaction. More important, the president's planned trip to India this fall should go forward. Consultations are more important than ever when we disagree; indeed, going to India gives Mr. Clinton an opportunity to make his case to the Indian government and public.

The administration should also work to hold off the sort of wholesale economic sanctions called for by existing legislation. Cutting off all American and international economic support for India risks turning this enormous country into the newest Asian problem. President Clinton should take advantage of the 30-day waiting
period provided by U.S. law to strike a deal with Congress on a limited set of penalties.

A good many people in Congress and beyond will reject this proposed approach as too mild, fearing that the limited sanctions will not dissuade India or others from further proliferation. This view is understandable but flawed. The reality is that not all proliferation is equally bad. We have long held that nuclear weapons in
responsible hands such as our own can be stabilizing, a deterrent to the use of conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by others.

Indeed, discrimination is at the heart of the entire non-proliferation regime in that it treats five countries (the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France) different from everyone else. We also long viewed India, as well as Pakistan and Israel, as in a different category than Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Double standards-- and triple standards if need be - are what a realistic and successful foreign policy is all about.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Times




Indian Politics Stymie U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal
Wade Boese
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_04/IndianPolitics.asp
With U.S. officials warning that time is running out on an initiative to rollback restrictions on global nuclear trade with India, that country’s coalition government failed March 17 to persuade its leftist allies to drop their opposition to the U.S.-Indian effort. Another meeting to sway the holdouts is supposed to take place sometime in April.

The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is trying to win over the leftist parties because they have threatened to withdraw support for the ruling coalition if it takes certain steps toward implementing what the leftists charge is a deal that will erode India’s sovereignty and security. Such a split could trigger early elections that risk unseating Singh’s government.

The key issue at the March conclave was whether Singh’s government should finalize a safeguards agreement it negotiated over the past several months with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Safeguards are measures that the agency applies to a country’s declared civilian nuclear materials, technologies, and facilities to guard against their use for nuclear weapons purposes.

As part of a March 2006 agreement with President George W. Bush, Singh pledged to put eight additional Indian thermal nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards, leaving another eight outside of safeguards and free to contribute to India’s nuclear weapons sector. New Delhi also plans to keep its two fast breeder reactors, which can produce large quantities of the nuclear bomb material plutonium, outside of safeguards. It further retains the option to designate any future reactors of any type that it builds off-limits to the IAEA.

Singh’s government is seeking the leftist parties’ endorsement of the new safeguards arrangement so it can be completed and presented for approval by the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors. The leftist parties have warned that they will break with the government if it proceeds with the safeguards agreement without their consent.

The text of the India-specific safeguards agreement remains secret and unfinished. A source familiar with the IAEA-Indian talks told Arms Control Today March 19 that “the sides are close to a final text, but India has to confirm the text” before it can be presented to the board, which typically has agreed to safeguards arrangements by consensus. It can, however, approve them with a simple majority vote.

At the March meeting, Singh’s government did not share the safeguards text with the representatives of the leftist parties, opting to brief them instead. The Hindu, one of India’s largest daily newspapers, reported afterward that leftist leaders said they need more details and that deliberations might take another three to four months.

That prospect conflicts with recent statements by U.S. government officials and legislators that the IAEA Board of Governors and the voluntary Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) must act rapidly on the U.S.-Indian initiative so U.S. lawmakers can take it up before this summer when Congress will recess and then turn its attention to the November elections. (See ACT, March 2008.) The 45 members of the NSG, including the United States, seek to coordinate their nuclear export rules, one of which restricts trade with countries, such as India, that do not subject their entire nuclear enterprise to IAEA safeguards and remain outside the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India largely has been ostracized from the international nuclear market since conducting a 1974 nuclear blast that used material derived from Canadian and U.S. exports designated for peaceful purposes.

U.S. lawmakers in December 2006 approved legislation with a provision that the NSG must clear India for expanded nuclear trade before Congress will vote on a U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement negotiated last summer. (See ACT, September 2007.) Meanwhile, the NSG is waiting on IAEA board approval of the Indian safeguards agreement.

The next NSG meeting is scheduled to occur May 19-22, which is prior to the next regular IAEA board meeting June 2-6. A special meeting of the board, however, can be convened at the request of the IAEA director-general or any board member, including the United States or India. The source familiar with the IAEA-Indian talks said that there are “no plans for a special session of the board” but noted that could change quickly if the Indian government gives final approval to the negotiated safeguards text.

Still, the window might already be closed. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the Hindustan Times Feb. 29 that the “Indian government needs to move in the month of March on the IAEA Board of Governors” in order to give the NSG and Congress time to act. Noting that “it’s not going to happen overnight,” he warned that the NSG process will be “complicated” and “require many meetings.” Burns further cautioned that if Congress did not get around to passing the agreement this year, he thought “it’s very likely that we will not see it continued by a new administration.”


The Nuclear Deal And Democracy

By Suvrat Raju

10 July, 2008
Countercurrents.org

While much has been written about the Indo-US nuclear deal, a central question remains unasked: "Why is the deal important enough to precipitate a crisis in the government?".

The answer that the proponents of the deal provide –- that the deal is essential for energy security –- is, evidently, simple minded. According to figures provided by Anil Kakodkar –- the chairperson of the Department of Atomic Energy –- the deal will increase India's installed energy capacity by 2.5% by 2020 (1). While the Prime Minister may be perspicacious, this stretches the bounds of sagacity; simply put, governments do not risk self sacrifice for small gains in energy production, 12 years in the future. When one compounds this insignificant gain with the considerable uncertainty that the deal will actually clear the American congress before September, the energy security argument becomes completely untenable.

Indeed, the very desperation of the government to pass this deal indicates, more clearly than anything else, that the deal is not just about energy. While it is clear that the deal is about a larger strategic relationship with the US, this begs the question; most aspects of this relationship, including closer military and economic ties seem to be independent of the deal. So, what is the fuss about?

This question is answered candidly in the American strategic discourse. An alliance with the US entails an essential prerequisite: the government should be in a position to fulfill American demands, irrespective of domestic political considerations. Although, this is deeply undemocratic, this makes sense. Imagine the horror of American legislators if they were to help India obtain a seat in the security council only to find the Indian government arguing against American interference in Venezuela!

Incidentally, this doctrine applies to any bilateral relationship involving the US. During the Iraq war, Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as belonging to `old' Europe. As Chomsky pointed out (2), the countries of `new' Europe –- like Italy or Spain –- were those that supported Washington in spite of strong domestic opposition.


Viewed from this perspective, India has behaved well in recent years. Ashley Tellis, an influential advisor to the US government, arguing for the deal in a testimony to the US House of representatives approvingly noted at least 10 instances –- including India's vote against Iran, its support for the war in Afghanistan and its endorsement of American positions on climate change, missile defense and chemical weapons -- where the Indian government acted against domestic opposition and long held policies to support the US.(3)

On the other hand, the existence of an independent democratic discourse in India is a matter of great concern for the US. Ashton Carter, a member of the Clinton administration, lamented to the US senate that the fact that India was a democracy meant that "no government in Delhi can ... commit it to a broad set of actions in support of U.S. Interests" before pointing out that India's "... stubborn adherence to independent positions regarding the world order, economic development, and nuclear security" created a serious hazard for Indo-US strategic ties.(4)

These testimonies merely articulate what is public knowledge. Washington expects compliance from its allies. If India is to be a trusted ally it cannot protest loudly against the oppression of Palestinians, organize developing countries in defense of Iran or repudiate iniquitous conditions laid down by the WTO; it must support the US in diplomatic forums and provide logistical support for US military operations in Asia. Furthermore, and this is critical for American policy makers, this support cannot be contingent on the vagaries of Indian politics. Hence, while the Indian elite is quite willing to accede to these demands, it must first convince the US that its house is in order. It must tame the complexities of Indian democracy so that it can deliver on what it promises. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

In this context, the nuclear deal provides a high profile test case. The passage of the deal, although materially insignificant, is an extremely important matter of principle. If domestic political considerations cause the government to balk, that sets a terrible example and leaves India –- in the words of Ronen Sen –- with "zero credibility".(5) The consequent loss of trust that this will engender in Washington will damage ties with the US for years to come.

In any case, Indian ruling classes have been impatient with democratic dissent since it creates difficulties in their attempts to ram through an elite agenda. As Chidambaram put it (6), "Indian ... democracy has often paralyzed decision making ... this approach must change." After the deal was stalled last year, Manmohan Singh wondered whether a "single party state" would be preferable!(7)

India's newly empowered elite now finds that this frustrating political process threatens its global aspirations. This has brought together powerful interests ranging from India Inc. to NRI lobby in an attempt to remove roadblocks to the deal. These forces are strong enough to impel the government to risk its own survival.

The message, conveyed to the G8, was that India is ruled by a government that is willing to make (in the words of Nicholas Burns, the American negotiator for the nuclear deal), "courageous decisions" (8) -- and bulldoze domestic dissent -- if this is demanded by Washington or Brussels!

This is bad news for Indian democracy. The Indian system, despite its tremendous iniquities and imperfections is based on the notion that governments privilege their survival over all else. The idea that a government may imperil its own existence to fulfill commitments made to a foreign government is antithetical to the idea of democracy. The recent baffling actions of the Manmohan Singh government must be understood as a worrying loss of democratic space.

----------------
References
----------------

(1)The Hindu, 31 October, 2007 and "Energy for India in the coming decades", Anil Kakodkar,
http://www.dae.gov.in/iaea/ak-paris0305.doc

(2)Znet, 31 October, 2003

(3)Testimony by Ashley J. Tellis before the House Committee on International Relations, November 16, 2005

(4)Ashton Carter, Testimony Testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, November 2, 2005.

(5)Rediff, Aug 20, 2007: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/aug/20inter.htm

(6)Convocation Address, IIM Ahmedabad, March 31, 2007 http://financeminister.gov.in/public_speeches/pdf/2007.
3.31%20Convocation%20Address,%20IIM,%20Ahmedabad.pdf

(7)Inaugural Address to the 4th International Conference on Federalism, November 5, 2007

(8)The Hindu, March 1, 2008


Suvrat Raju is a physicist and an activist. He just completed his PhD at Harvard.