India Nuclear News & Discussion - 9 Sept 2007

rocky
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Post by rocky »

So any specific reasons why Karnad was moved out of NSAB? And any timing/coincidence with other events w.r.t. his ejection?
Arun_S
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Post by Arun_S »

It is a loaded quesion. Karnad was not moved out of NSAB much like Air Chief Marshal Mehra was not moved out.

IIRC NSAB member have a term. & IFAIK finally after serving its purpose NSAB body was dissolved.
svinayak
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Post by svinayak »

Arun_S wrote:It is a loaded quesion. Karnad was not moved out of NSAB much likeAirChiefMarshal Mehra was not moved out.

IIRC NSAB member have a term. & IFAIK finally after serving its purpose NSAB body was dissolved.
THey wanted to create a large pool of NSAB experienced strategic experts who would build on it and create an entire community going forward into next decades.
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Post by CRamS »

Both Brahma Chellaney and the Economist use the same stats and facts about nuclear power, but whether or not nuke power can meet insatiable world-wide power demands and also curb green house emissions that fossil fuel sources of energy are plauged with, Economist is more optimistic: "Nuclear dawn", "Nuclear power's new age" and Atomic renaissance they pontificate, while the stalwart BC is not only pessimistic, he is contemptuous in dismissing all the tall claims about nuke power: HypE=mc2 he avers. LDev where do stand, kindly comment if you have a few minutes to read these pieces.
Last edited by CRamS on 10 Sep 2007 06:58, edited 1 time in total.
John Snow
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Post by John Snow »

After watching enqyoob for considerable time, I am now convinced of his rationale in batting for the 123 to J18 agrrement on disagreements.

As his Sub critical analyss ( Sub as in hindi Sub kuch seekha hamne ) clearly points to obselence of nukes in couple years as uncles retired politicians and think tanks have predicted. So Indian leaders, the visionaries that they are and also Indiaconsistantly advocated Universal Unilateral Dis armamament (UUDA new Oracle data type), therefore MMS in his wisdom aided and abetted by luminaries like Narayanans have decided to loook far beyond the dark days of India with bright lights drive by Nuke power not the Bum kind which BR jingos like.

I may be the first EB in Enqyoobs camp! powered by Pee U battaries!!

now coming to the whole idea of Indian bums are not maha read Hydrogen bums but PUre fission bums which dont exceed 15 to 20 Kt dhamka. We have two options based on MMS inner circles.

Our problem padosies are TSP Badmash Bdesh and Lizard crawling all over Indian territories (more of Internal than external).

So the MMS advisors of Narayan caliber must have cme out of brilliant solution. Freeze big BUMs hatch more chota bums (no testing required) make more Agnis and Prithvis test as much as you can, keeps DRDO busy all the while with mark i mark ii to Nthe term Mark N. (new like new Ambasador cars).

Forget MAD about You PRC, Forget pro active and punitive pounding of TSP or BDesh.

Earmark 200 Agni Prithvi combos with 10 to 20 Kt wallah maal.
(200 beacuse Ravi suspect 50% chance of both bum and prithvi combo working 0.45 prob of reliability of bum working .95 reliabilty of the delivery
over all relaibility of 0.42 * 200 = ~ 85 targets can be hit)

For Lizard Make about 400 Agnis and with 20 Kt mall you get 168 targets.

Besides PRC is more sophisticated enemy so they will only encroch on territory and India will not fight such useless lousy wars as seen in Arunachal...

But TSP plays rapid chess, and we play the same way (if discovered like in Kargil about A month later).

In rapid chess you take out pawn for pawn or power for power at the first instance, so if Pakis throw a 5kt 10 kt maal we throw a 20kt assuming Ravi's therory only 50% yield for Indian Bums and as confirmed by Wallace Texas wallah analyis.



Therefore enqyoob theroy of signing 123 or J18 is no big deal because we are for nuke lighting the sub continent onlee. In addition if we are smart we can persuade unkil by then and he will allow us to test boosted fission fusion ( Indo US fusion) on TSP as payback for MMS faar sightedness.


I say show US papers and we will put LTI where ever needed
bala
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Post by bala »

Snowji, just to come up with another, um, snow job:

Think of the benefits of the deal. Potus will not be bothered by pesky/perky media journails about whether India is complying with Nuke stuff. Potus can answer that they signed 123 etc, don’t bother me. NPA Perky can go write about other stuff (with stolen pichar of Indian armed forces shooting galleries). US can also go about its business of creating alliances like Aussie-Nippon-India axis. Maybe India is invited to see the shiny things (nuke) kept in Oz Land or Nippon Land or other advanced toys in Massa land like Los Angeles class subs, Nimitz aircraft carriers, who knows what. GE, Westinghouse, Lockheed Martin increases their investments into India ten-fold.
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Post by ldev »

CRamS wrote:Both Brahma Chellaney and the Economist use the same stats and facts about nuclear power, but whether or not nuke power can meet insatiable world-wide power demands and also curb green house emissions that fossil fuel sources of energy are plauged with, Economist is more optimistic: "Nuclear dawn", "Nuclear power's new age" and Atomic renaissance they pontificate, while the stalwart BC is not only pessimistic, he is contemptuous in dismissing all the tall claims about nuke power: HypE=mc2 he avers. LDev where do stand, kindly comment if you have a few minutes to read these pieces.
CRamS,

Basically as of today globally, transportation is overwhelmingly oil dependent, electricity generation is dependent on coal for about 40%, nuclear generation about 15%, hydro about 15% and gas about 20%.

I think India and Indians have got to get out this nasty habit of trying to figure out where the rest of the world is going and what it is going and check that against what India is doing. India has to do what is right for itself depending on India's own unique cirumstances, strengths and weaknesses. BC is totally wrong in looking at seeing which way the herd is charging and then saying that India should follow the herd. Whether the rest of the world is going the way of the once pass through uranium cycle is none of India's concern, even if certain countries such as France and Japan are bucking the herd and going for the closed cycle.

The holy grail for India is the closed cycle utilizing thorium. Of that there is no doubt. That closed cycle utilizing thorium could give India an installed capacity of 500GW for 200 years or more - buy enough time until fusion reactors become a reality. Indian high ash content coal reserves in contrast if used at that rate will last no more than 40-50 years and bury the country in ash.

However, India will be the first country to go down the thorium route. Its a new class of reactors with new fuel to be fabricated, new processing to be done, new engineering challenges for reactor erection etc. And to be frank, India's track record in implementing large scale projects on time is not the best. And most importantly, IMO, given the scale of India's requirment of electricity, large scale utilization of its thorium reserves is going to need fissile driver fuel in quantities that India does not posesses domestically.

That is what this 123 agreement does, it opens up that avenue to import the driver fuel that India needs to start utilizing its thorium reserves immediately, rather than waiting for 40 years or more while the FBRs slowly and painfully built 1 at a time start producing the driver fuel which after 40 years will allow India to fuel maybe 5 thorium reactors rather than 200 thorium reactors which it needs ASAP. It will bring private sector money to invest in nuke plants (why should the Indian tax payer bear all the risk of tens of billions of dollars?).

Added later:
One has to think out of the box. As an example, let India sign the 123 agreement and import uranium fuelled LWRs to be set up with private sector money. So no risk for the Indian tax payer. Amend various laws to bring them into conformity with other countries e.g. limited liability protection for the plant operator etc. etc. All of that spent fuel will have to be stored somewhere. Let it be stored in India. None of the country's supplying the fuel will want radioactive spent fuel back. Let this continue for the next 50 years or more. Build the reactors like crazy until in 50 years time there are 200 of them in India. What you have at the end of that is a mountain of spent fuel in India's posession. Who knows what the state of the world will be like then. What India will have in its possession will be a mountain of fuel which utilizing reprocessing technology will be good for another 200 years in a closed fuel cycle. And in addition to that, India will have its own reserves of thorium. Its like a country saying today, that yes we have our own oil reserves, but we will buy oil from others and keep our own reserves truly as reserves. That does not mean no development of technology nor does it mean no commercialization of thorium reactors but a judicious mixture of the two.

But to think and act this way, one has to get out of this fear obsessed mentality which I see gripping people including on this very thread, that somehow by signing this 123 agreement the sky is going to fall in and bury us under. The attitude has to change from being thought of constantly as the target of others, rather to becoming the hunter who will seek out the opportunities that are available all over the world.
Last edited by ldev on 10 Sep 2007 08:36, edited 2 times in total.
Laks
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Post by Laks »

Deccan Chronicle 10/9/07.
Wool pulled over India’s eyes
By Brahma Chellaney

Part- III

There would have been no political uproar over the nuclear deal had the Prime Minister taken on board all important stakeholders on an issue centred on the future of India’s most-prized strategic asset — its nuclear programme. Acquiescence to the deal’s shifting goalposts also stoked controversy.

Undaunted by the conditions-laden Hyde Act, New Delhi went ahead and concluded an ambiguously formulated 123 Agreement with a country that has a record of gutting even carefully crafted international treaties and bilateral accords, including an earlier 123 pact with India.

The US can happily live with ambiguities in the latest 123 Agreement because the accord — a requirement only under American law — carries no force under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and, in any event, it confers enforceable rights just on the supplier-state.

How willingly India ceded ground can be seen from the reprocessing issue.

Illusive reprocessing right.

Reprocessing is at the heart of India’s plans to build long-term energy security. The PM had pledged to secure an unqualified right to reprocess spent fuel. Indian nuclear chief Anil Kakodkar even called India’s right to reprocess "non-negotiable."

India ended up, however, making concessions beyond its Separation Plan merely to obtain an empty theoretical right to reprocess.

The practical right to reprocess is to be separately negotiated in the future. Like on full cooperation, India settled for a conceptual entitlement than for an actual right.

The Separation Plan, whose contents were negotiated with Washington and presented to Parliament, had specified only two reprocessing-related actions: (i) "India is willing to accept safeguards in the campaign mode after 2010 in respect of the Tarapur Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing (PREFRE) Plant"; and (ii) the Tarapur and Rajasthan spent-fuel storage pools "would be made available for safeguards with appropriate phasing between 2006-2009."

Why did India go beyond the Separation Plan in agreeing to sideline PREFRE and build an expensive new facility at its own cost?

According to the 123 Agreement, to bring its reprocessing right "into effect, India will establish a new national reprocessing facility dedicated to reprocessing safeguarded nuclear material under IAEA safeguards, and the parties will agree on arrangements and procedures under which such reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place in this new facility."

India has agreed not only to build a new dedicated facility, but also, as Manmohan Singh admitted, to route all spent fuel of foreign-origin through that plant. PREFRE thus will be used only for safeguarded indigenous fuel. This concession symbolises yet another breach of assurance to Parliament.

According to the US government, it will be years before India can hope to secure the actual right to reprocess — New Delhi has to first build the dedicated facility and then negotiate with Washington a separate Section 131 reprocessing agreement.

At his July 27, 2007, news conference, Nicholas Burns was clear: (i) there is no timeframe within which the US intends to grant India the operational consent to reprocess; and (ii) before negotiations on the "arrangements and procedures" under Section 131 of AEC can begin, India has first to build the new "state-of-the-art" reprocessing facility to US satisfaction.

Yet the PM speciously told Parliament on August 13, 2007, that the right to reprocess has already been "secured upfront," going to the extent of calling it a "permanent consent."

If Singh wishes to see an agreement with an operational consent to reprocess, he could look up the 1987 Japan-US accord, which came into force the following year.

The Japan-US 123 accord was accompanied by a nine-page "implementing agreement" which gave effect to "advance, long-term consent for reprocessing, transfers, alteration and storage of nuclear material" to Tokyo by spelling out the various reprocessing-related arrangements.

In his message to Congress, President Ronald Reagan said, "These arrangements should enable Japan to plan for its long-term energy needs on a more assured, predictable basis…"

Shouldn’t New Delhi have also insisted on a "more assured, predictable basis" of cooperation through a similar operational right to reprocess?

Why did it agree to defer operational consent to the future, to be worked out under Section 131, which is titled "Subsequent Arrangements"?

While the 123 Agreement states that negotiations on the subsequent arrangements "will begin within six months of a request by either party and will be concluded within one year" thereafter, the arrangements have to pass muster with the US Congress, which under Section 131 is empowered to adopt a concurrent resolution blocking such a plan.

Couldn’t nuclear India have secured a 123 deal with the US on terms at least similar to those granted to non-nuclear Japan? Like a parent calming a demanding kid, the US placated the Indian government by handing the consent-in-principle lollipop.

Yet another stage has been added to the deal.

After more than two years, the deal has completed just two of the five obligatory stages. But now, through the 123 Agreement, a sixth stage has been added — a separate Section 131 agreement on reprocessing.

Furthermore, the sequencing of the next steps has now been changed to New Delhi’s disadvantage.

As the July 27, 2007, separate Indian and US fact-sheets revealed, New Delhi has agreed to first conclude an IAEA safeguards agreement before the Nuclear Suppliers Group even attempts to carve out an India exemption from its 1992 export guidelines.

While America legislated a conditional export-control exemption for India without awaiting the safeguards pact, the US-led NSG will follow a different principle. Washington will seek to ensure that the NSG does not make an exemption on terms less restrictive than those set by the US Congress. The Hyde Act stipulates that the NSG exemption for India should neither be less stringent than what the Act itself prescribes, nor take effect before the final congressional consent to the deal. The latter rider is intended to ensure that other suppliers do not gain a head-start over US businesses.

But look at the implications of New Delhi’s climbdown on the reprocessing issue: having expended millions of dollars in a lobbying campaign to get the infamous Hyde Act passed, India has now to brace up to two more battles on Capitol Hill — securing congressional approval first of the 123 Agreement, and then of a special 131 Agreement. That is likely to subject India to continuing congressional scrutiny and demands for a long time.

By deferring a resolution of the reprocessing issue to the future while flaunting a barren notional right at present, India also risks getting into a bigger mess than over Tarapur, whose spent fuel continues to accumulate 38 years after the twin-reactor power station began operating.

The Tarapur mess has persisted even though the 1963 agreement granted India an operational consent to reprocess and provided for no congressional role.

Yet Washington blocked India from reprocessing by exploiting an innocuous provision calling for a "joint determination" that the reprocessing facility would be adequately safeguarded.

The US simply refused to join India in such a "joint determination" even after the IAEA had certified that very facility — PREFRE — to be "safeguardable." Indeed, the IAEA has applied safeguards in the "campaign mode" to PREFRE since the Eighties, whenever India introduced safeguarded fuel there from another power station, RAPS.

In the new 123 accord, the US has gained an effective veto on Indian reprocessing until such indeterminate time India has satisfied it by building a new "state-of-the-art" facility and working out the subsequent "arrangements and procedures."

The last Indian reprocessing facility at Kalpakkam took five years to complete, but the new one is likely to take longer, given the external involvement in its design and the absence of an international "state-of-the-art" model.

National security adviser M.K. Narayanan has already warned that "spoilers" could nit-pick on its design to delay the process. "You will get spoilers I am quite sure … if someone is quibbling that ‘I don’t like it to be facing west, it should face east,’ I mean that would be different," he said in an interview published on July 28, 2007.

Against this background, it is inexcusable that Indian negotiators have sought to pull the wool over the public’s eyes on key issues. Can allegiance to the deal be allowed to trump national interest?

Today the deal has become a political cudgel in a spreading storm. Yet there is a silver lining. The furore drives home an important message: Indian democracy has matured to the point that without winning public trust, no PM can move forward on a core national-interest issue.

Concluded
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Post by Laks »

Deccan Chronicle 10/9/2007.
Nuclear deal politics is systemic failure
By Shivaji Sondhi


President Bush is, with some justice, derided as a simpleton by large fractions of the foreign policy cognoscenti in the United States and around the world. His love of simple, big ideas has led to Iraq and also to his uncritical embrace of India. Faced with such a man, India’s political leaders faced two options: a) get the man to sign away the store before the next President — likely a Democrat with a large retinue of non-proliferation experts and Clintonian China experts — reaches the White House, or b) conjure up the ghost of Krishna Menon to explain to Bush the error of his simple ways.

Quite remarkably, they have chosen "b." I say quite remarkably, for there is really no question that Indian national security is enhanced by closer ties with the United States. An overwhelming majority in Parliament believes this — even allowing for the BJP’s recent crafting of a distinction between strategic partnering and strategic subservience. The NDA described the United States and India as "natural allies" and the UPA has built on that. The outliers are the Communists whose visceral dislike of the modern world makes them unfit to govern India.

This consensus is unsurprising. From 1980 to the present day, China’s economic growth has outstripped India’s, so that its economic power as measured by GDP has gone from being equal to India’s to being double India’s. It is as if a second China has appeared on India’s border. Evidently, the United States is a natural balancing partner for India in dealing with this development. On the other flank the challenge of Islamism to governments from Pakistan onwards is troublesome to India, and has been the source of much bloodshed in Kashmir, and of late, also elsewhere in the country. While the US has not handled Iraq well, it is still the dominant outside power in that region and the one whose overall goals are most aligned with India’s own interests. Afghanistan today is not perfect, but is in much better shape from an Indian perspective — thanks to the US. Relations between India and Pakistan are friendlier than in a long time with at least some of that progress being attributable to the US being engaged in the region.

With such weighty reasons at stake, one might think that the system — collectively — could have produced outcome "a" and with some grace. The nuclear deal is, in any rational calculus, a net benefit for India. It will expand and modernise the civilian nuclear sector while leaving the military sector in no worse shape than it is today. It will move India from the margins of the NPT framework to, essentially, acceptance as a country legitimately in possession of nuclear weapons. It marks, in no uncertain terms, an end to the Indo-Pak hyphenation that Indians have long sought. In an incipient regime of carbon taxation, it is even economically rational.

Then there is the strange discussion of future nuclear tests at a time where the greatest obstacle to the reliability of the Indian nuclear deterrent over the next two decades or so is the limited nature of the delivery systems, rather than the fine tuning of current warhead designs. Perhaps tests, of either boosted fission weapons or refined thermonuclear warheads, would become essential in a future threatening national security environment. If the threat arises from China, why would a friendly US stand in India’s way? If the threat arises from the US, as the paranoid obsess — then US domestic law will be the least of India’s problems.

So really, there isn’t much to argue about here. It is, then, a systemic failure that is preventing Indian Parliament from sending a thank-you note to the American people through their President, and in that process to cement the growing favourable perception of India in the US as an emerging pillar of a democratic world order.

The systemic failure is not new. The Congress was equally vacuously critical of the major foreign policy and national security initiatives of the BJP, all of which it has continued in power. As far back as 1991, the late Chandrasekhar — man of the Left — allowed American planes to refuel in India during the first Iraq war and found himself excommunicated from the fraternity of the excessively moral by the late Rajiv Gandhi.

Democratic politics is messy and it is really not possible for it to "stop at water’s edge." The Congress has never taken kindly to being out of office and the BJP regards an India in the keeping of Sonia Gandhi and Prakash Karat as fundamentally unsafe. From such vantage points, elections beckon with predictable consequences for the national interest.

While all of this is narrowly, politically, understandable, it is far from desirable. It is high time that the two Central governing parties, the Congress and the BJP, sit down and work out a consultative process that — out of sight perhaps — allows them to jointly advance India’s key national interests. This would still leave them free to seek to annihilate each other domestically and would reduce the frequency of elections only slightly.

In improving systemic rationality, it would also enhance their joint claim to represent the Indian national interest above and beyond the more parochial interests represented by other actors in the political system.

Shivaji Sondhi is Professor at the Department of Physics, Princeton University, US
Sparsh
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Post by Sparsh »

Sraj,

Boss, the FMCT tamasha is one mighty fine piss process in the making. I don't think the sort of FMCT that we have said we will sign is going to come around any time soon. The GoI's position has been that India will only join a multilateral FMCT that among other things is internationally verifiable and meets India's security concerns.

Goats will fly in Bakistan before something like that comes about.

An FMCT that is not verifiable is not an FMCT by any stretch of the imagination. How many people will simply trust a statement by any government that says that it has ceased production of fissile material? Toilet paper is cheap.

An FMCT that is truly verifiable will not be acceptable to the P-5 as they stand to loose the privileges they enjoy under the current NPT scam. Thats why the Americans are peddling their "verification by national technical means" nonsense.

The FMCT has been a pipe dream from the beginning and will remain so for some time to come.
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Post by SaiK »

End=mate.Chinese2
In view of continuing and unabated Chinese hostility, India has no option except to make common cause with the US. China has lost a golden opportunity to develop permanent and intimate friendship with India. If today India is leaning towards the US, China has itself to blame. Pro-China opponents of the 123 Agreement will do well to mull over this aspect. Instead of faulting the Indian Government for the growing Indo-US intimacy, they should question China for its obduracy and anti-Indian stance.
(The writer is a retired Major General.)http://deccanherald.com/Content/Sep1020 ... 924381.asp
Sanku
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Post by Sanku »

First and foremost Arun_S many thanks for your reply to my post.

Hoo ha; it seems one has to do one of the two things in life;
1) Either be on BRF 24X7
2) Spend half a day on the archives.

Great now that I am synced up I find
0) N up to is usual nautanki; having nothing left to do in terms of reading my posts or making insightful observations but attacking me ad hominem.
1) No compelling reason has been presented in favor even if the deal gets through. (more critiques later) the unanswered questions remain unanswered.
2) Need to remain the flexiblity to test has come up.
3) BK, IY are on the offensive
4) The thread has gone though 180 deg turn and aligns with me.

I find it interesting that the board has been united by the test word; while to me the restriction on testing was only 1/5 of all the restrictions in the deal. I had been deliberately avoiding a discussion on the same since adding that makes folks jump on you on that point alone. I was trying to see that whether the deal makes sense even when testing issue is kept aside.

<semi joke>
BK IY BC PC Alexander etc etc. and me. What a select club.
</end semi joke>
:P
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Post by Sanku »

Ho Ha ---

Congress scared of 123 debate

Though I believe unlike the columinst that the above should strictly speaking be Sonia/Dr Singh scared rather than congress.
It is now clear that neither the Prime Minister nor the Congress wants a debate on the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement in Parliament. It is also clear that for reasons that are best known to Mr Manmohan Singh, his aides in the PMO and a clutch of 'Yes, Prime Minister' bureaucrats in the Foreign Office who negotiated the deal do not wish it to be scrutinised by either parliamentarians or the citizens of this country who are aghast that so momentous a decision is being taken without even a public debate worth its name.
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Post by Sanku »

What ever happened to all the posts by the RaviCV bloke which N^3 was pointing me towards as unalloyed truth?
ramana
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Post by ramana »

He edited them out as they were causing too much controversy.

I think umrao jaan is right . Never mind what was the yield. Just make more of them and don't get on any FMCO bandwagon unless you have enough numbers.
It doesn't matter whether you are hit with 20kt or 100 kt nuke. It still gives a headache. The yield story is a red herring. As Bin Powell says 'Past is past lets look to the future'.
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Post by Sanku »

ldev wrote:
I think India and Indians have got to get out this nasty habit of trying to figure out where the rest of the world is going and what it is going and check that against what India is doing.
Idev; hows that for spin ::Nasty habit of Indian:: like BC. Unwashed litterate hordes like Moi no doubt. Perhaps what can also be easily said is that BC with all his knowledge is using the existing data points to plot the "real" truth rather than claim moon is made of green cheese?
even if certain countries such as France and Japan are bucking the herd and going for the closed cycle.
So BC using the rest of the world as example is so Gunda din mentality while you being fixated on France is so visionary. :roll:

(Please note; I am not making a for or against statement; merely pointing out your wonderful self evident bias and lack of perspective here which result in your usual will look at only what I want behavior.)
and bury the country in ash.
BURY!! A completely valid and accurate statement no doubt as opposed to fear mongering using vauge terms other use!!
And to be frank, India's track record in implementing large scale projects on time is not the best.
I am going to label the above as exhibit A to be used later below.
And most importantly, IMO, given the scale of India's requirment of electricity, large scale utilization of its thorium reserves is going to need fissile driver fuel in quantities that India does not posesses domestically.
Ha ha; caught you/ Arun_S clearly said we do; all the Sci Com have never said we dont; so CAN YOU PLEASE PROVE how? Remember what you need to prove is not "more will help" what you have to prove is "never can do".
That is what this 123 agreement does, it opens up that avenue to import the driver fuel that India needs to start utilizing its thorium reserves immediately, rather than waiting for 40 years or more while the FBRs slowly and painfully built 1 at a time start producing the driver fuel which after 40 years will allow India to fuel maybe 5 thorium reactors rather than 200 thorium reactors which it needs ASAP.
200 Thorium reactor ASAP :eek: :eek: (using exhibit A); how will a weak cant do anything country with regard to domestic program suddenly sprout the above as Mushrooms?? A very realistic scenario no doubt. Sign 123 and you will find FBRs and PWHRs in India at the same rate as crashes is Windows 2000. :rotfl:

Secondly since FBRs were going to be not on the strategic side; how will safeguarded fuel be useful for the same? The best imported fuel can do is to fuel the safeguarded old reactors and new LWRs. Unless of course you want them in civvy side tomorrow as well. Another very plausible scenario no :roll:
It will bring private sector money to invest in nuke plants (why should the Indian tax payer bear all the risk of tens of billions of dollars?).
Yeah; yeah... Pvt Sec is dying to pour money into infrastructure and govt does not have to do anything; like providing guarantees; assuring fuel supplies; giving attractive infra discounts remember the NPCIL article I posted list various factors in cost

Wow; GoI was worried about Nuclear power all these years without any need; all the needed was to say "come build" and do nothing else.

Obviously GoI lives off bribe and not tax money so its activites with regards to PPP model will be funded by private players anyway.
yoo hooo.....

Please refer to any power generation unit made under PPP and check out Govts role before making such la la statements as above. Google helps; let me know if you need help on how to use it.
One has to think out of the box.
Unfortunately one also has to think in reality and not in make believe.

Please keep the reality in mind and also factor in what happens if things go wrong instead of saying that all is hunky dory; any sensible plan also factors in downsides right? Something kown as PROJECT RISK ANALYSIS Remember the provisions of HYde and how they may be used; Or are you saying there are no risks

Remember it will be possible to cut of Fuel supplies after 200 :roll: reactors are under construction say 5 years down the line effectively crippling and wasting the entire investments.

But as you say; realism is just fear mongering right?? Unlike your "buried under ASH!!" truth statements.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS> This was fun. In case you have missed the point completely as I am sure you will do; here is the summary --
1) The above pro deal position is based on a HIGHLY OPTIMISTIC perspective; which completely lacks factoring in the other side to make it balanced.
2) You use the same factor for and against using switch and bait as you find convienent.

And finally
If some one was to do a open minded clear cut Risk vs Reward analysis of the deal; it is not worth it. Testing being one of the "minor" clauses in the risk.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Usually only two kinds of folks make "these Indians and their mindsets" statements
1) Blind with Massa types; many (not all) NRIs are in this camp (I should know having been one)
2) Brown Sahibs in India (Dr Singh variety) who are so much better than others that they dont need to listen to what the runts have to say.
Satya_anveshi
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Post by Satya_anveshi »

But that was total full-toss by CRams to ldev :). SYAL.
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Post by Sanku »

Satya_anveshi wrote:But that was total full-toss by CRams to ldev :). SYAL.
Umm whats SYAL?? A Idev lobbed a straight catch didnt he?? He did not even attempt to tackle any of the points in the BCs article which are all so valid.
Last edited by Sanku on 10 Sep 2007 11:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Sanku »

The interesting question is that why are dots connecting now and not before?

My take is
1) People were taken in for some time by GOTUS; their stategy of pushing Dubya with his enomorous sincere love for India; which only he could do since only a fool can be that transparently sincere; while planning a backstab; worked very well. Some of the wise folks looked at Dubya "intentions" than what was the reality being written on the ground.

2) Dr Singh enjoyed a modicum of trust; his reputation was enhanced by the promising speech he gave in the parliament post J18. He has been loosing it steadily as time passes; first with attack on Sci Com and now with current antics of Sibal and Co.

3) The govt had a strong grip; thus nay sayers were muzzled as the left breaks the monopoly of Kangress. People are begining to find a voice.

So basically we were running in full steam without really stopping to think. This forced hiatus gave us all the time to reconsider and for the press to be free of the govt. pressure to tow its line and give the space to others.

Basically I think at the root; people are not willing to come to terms with the fact that a Indian PM could do what Dr Singh is doing

The break in trust (I will not call this a sell out or any of those terms) in terms of expectations from what was implicitly expected of a Indian PM all these years is so severe; that most Jingos find themselves unable to look at the reality for the damage it does not our psyche in terms of respect for GoI at the very end.

JM2P and IMVHO etc etc.
Last edited by Sanku on 10 Sep 2007 12:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dileep »

ramana wrote:I think umrao jaan is right . Never mind what was the yield. Just make more of them and don't get on any FMCO bandwagon unless you have enough numbers.
It doesn't matter whether you are hit with 20kt or 100 kt nuke. It still gives a headache. The yield story is a red herring.
I was going to put this on certain smaller audience, but since Ramana Guru did it here:

Deterrence is based on the notion of unacceptable damage. Now, the unacceptable damage (UD) (and its complement, acceptable damage, AD) is a highly subjective notion.
A knife wound was AD for a wild west guy, and a creditor giving gallies is AD for the veggie vendor in Kaloor market. Both are highly UD for moi, the poor codewright. Getting caned on the arse was AD when I was at Mar Kauma HS, but UD now.
Remember, for a kamikaze type samurai Japan, two puny (by todays std) bums was UD in 1945. What makes people think that it will be AD today for the feeble materialistic societied today?

Today, the world is so interlinked, that damage to one is going to affect everyone else. A fizzling bum, let alone a 1KT diwalicracker in Shanghai in total UD not only for china, but also for pretty much all countries, including India.

Even rogue pakies, who might think it is AD to blow up the town of Fakhr Butt Khan, might not feel so about the various Fauji Ltd companies, or the various cantonments.

In the current place and time, a 10-20KT reliable bum and a very reliable accurate delivery mechanism is all you need for the deterrence against anybody (except the green balloonheads talking "Ack Ack").

Times changed. If Joaquim Murieta comes back to San Jose today, he will be surprised that you don't need a gun on you to protect yourself.
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Post by Sanku »

Dileep wrote: Times changed. If Joaquim Murieta comes back to San Jose today, he will be surprised that you don't need a gun on you to protect yourself.
And they can change yet again; if you were the gun association types; you will argue that the onlee real protection is SJ today is your own gun still and the reason SJ changed was that all guns were there in the past.

PS> Of course the real protection for a Ameeriki in SJ is that any bullet is more likely to hit a desi :P
Last edited by Sanku on 10 Sep 2007 11:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by csharma »

Assuming the deal is not acceptable the way it is, what are the next steps for GoI? Renegotiate or bring out an Indian law to counter Hyde act?
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Post by Sanku »

csharma wrote:Assuming the deal is not acceptable the way it is, what are the next steps for GoI? Renegotiate or bring out an Indian law to counter Hyde act?
Both I think; or pass such strict laws in India that
1) while negotiating with IAEA we give nothing away
2) The laws make it impossible to purchase nuclear material from any country whose domestic laws go against Indian laws in terms of nuclear material exchange (the sort not carried out by missiles I mean)

Basically Hyde will be a piece of paper and if US wants a piece of action in Indian scene they would have to give it to us on the terms we need.
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Post by csharma »

That makes a lot of sense. Not sure why Congress does not want to have a counter to Hyde act? How can it hurt the country's interests?
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Post by nkumar »

csharma wrote:
Assuming the deal is not acceptable the way it is, what are the next steps for GoI? Renegotiate or bring out an Indian law to counter Hyde act?
First thing, bring a white paper which details about our energy needs, all alternatives must be explored in detail. 123 has to be implemented through an 'energy policy' and not in an 'arbitrary' manner.

1) Bring a law which must contain that 'all' international treaties MUST be ratified by the parliament to come into force as is done in US. In addition to providing an additional check in the system, such a law will increase the negotiating power of our babus.

2) Change Atomic Energy Act to allow pvt sector participation.

3) Enact a jekyll law to counter negative aspects of hyde and 123 point-by-point.

4) Renegotiate and get a 'complete' deal which does not depend on subsequent 'arrangements and procedures'.

5) MUST get fuel supply guarantees in ANY situation for the reactors imported to date. This is an absolute must because Indian and US economy are not sufficiently interdependent like Chinese and US economy. We must not hand over any kind of leverage to any outside actor.
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Post by Sanku »

csharma wrote:That makes a lot of sense. Not sure why Congress does not want to have a counter to Hyde act? How can it hurt the country's interests?
Good question that is where the post I made a few posts above this w.r.t. disbeliefi that how can Dr Singh (Congress) do this comes into picture; the whole thing is so silly that it is impossible to accept on face value that such silliness is happening. Unfortunately it seems that if you take the spin away; the real truth is very dirty indeed at least from our perspective.
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Post by csharma »

It is kind of interesting how the mood on this forum has swayed to and fro over the last two years regrading the deal. However at this juncture it is very clear that a counter to Hyde is needed. Even the proponents of the 123 should not have any problem with that. KS says that Hyde does not matter if 123 is passed in the US. But what is the harm if we have a counter to Hyde? How can it hurt our interets?

I guess that is what some people in the opposition are asking for.

Another thought I have is that maybe GoI has concluded that in order to contain China, India will have to have some sort of quasi alliance with the US.
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Post by Sanku »

Shit!!

Govt to adjourn Parliament sine die

The govt. has clearly declared its respect for parilamentary debate and openness with this step.

I now expect that the damaging deal will be signed by the Govt behind the back of the political class as a means of subverting the opposition.

The opposition should make it clear that it will not honor the deal if any non congress entity were to come to power after the inevitable mid term polls now.
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Post by JE Menon »

Sparsh, you are being warned for the language used against Shankar. Do not repeat it.
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Post by UPrabhu »

Sanku not surprising... I now dont care if the deal is good or bad... but the way it is being pushed by the GoI, opposition oversight is must...
Sanku wrote:Shit!!

Govt to adjourn Parliament sine die

The govt. has clearly declared its respect for parilamentary debate and openness with this step.

I now expect that the damaging deal will be signed by the Govt behind the back of the political class as a means of subverting the opposition.

The opposition should make it clear that it will not honor the deal if any non congress entity were to come to power after the inevitable mid term polls now.
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Post by Dileep »

Sanku wrote: And they can change yet again; if you were the gun association types; you will argue that the onlee real protection is SJ today is your own gun still and the reason SJ changed was that all guns were there in the past.
Totally valid points, but does not contradict to the fact that in TODAYs SJ, it is known/proven that you don't need a gun to be safe. If the place falls to the Judge Dredd scenario, I am sure you 'n I can get a gun for protection.

The megaton/gigaton craze was just that, a craze to push the limit and show the manhood. "Because I can" syndrome. Even for a USSR which wouldn't have minded a "republic" or two to be glassivated, a 20kt bum on moscow or stalingrad would have been UD. All the stories of gazillion missiles aimed at the kitchen sink or every Ivan and Tatyana are just show offs.

Do you really need HALF the stuff you own? Didn't think so!
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Post by abhischekcc »

Sanku wrote:Shit!!

Govt to adjourn Parliament sine die

The govt. has clearly declared its respect for parilamentary debate and openness with this step.

I now expect that the damaging deal will be signed by the Govt behind the back of the political class as a means of subverting the opposition.

The opposition should make it clear that it will not honor the deal if any non congress entity were to come to power after the inevitable mid term polls now.
Well, so the Nehru family fascist dictatorship is finally showing its true colors. I don't remember whether I had said or not this on the forum, but at least I thought that the one road open to that awful female out of this political logjam will be to declare emergency. If Sonia does that, she can consider herself as flattened as an Italian thin crust pizza. That will also kill the deal.
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Post by Sanku »

Dileep wrote: "Because I can" syndrome.
To an extent I agree; however as a OT; do you really think that the entire leadership of US and USSR which took the world into that scenario was bunch of yahoos thinking with their balls? That in my opinion would be oversimplification of the conditions then; but as I said this is OT. I certainly am not using that as a justification to say that we need haazaar bums. However the present Chinese do show signs that they will rather go all out than settle for "loss of face". What is AD for the ChiCom? Has it been gamed yet?

However I think the Japan scenario is flawed too; as long as the war was conventional; and the Japs were sure that they can inflict UD to the Allies for control of main land; they were willing to die and be Kamikaze. If the nuclear damage was UD they would have thrown in the towel immediately after the first stike and not wait for the second one.
Japan stopped after nukes not because of UD but because they knew it was a lost cause since they didnt have nukes
Do you really need HALF the stuff you own? Didn't think so!
I own very little and NEED all of it :P
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Post by Shankar »

At last the Indian democracy is reacting to an unabashed sell out

The present Govt can still sign the deal but will not survive the fall out for sure and the next govt will just not operationalize the deal so for all practical purpose the deal is dead

The muzzle that govt managed to put on the scientific community is becoming unstuck and the media two is for a change changing its view when initially they all went ga ga over the deal thinking it is a manna from heaven

A govt that refuses to reflect the wish of the nation looses the mandate to govern -that is what is happening to the present one

You can not lie to a nation and expect to live thru to end

We Indians may be illiterate but not stupid - a con is a con and in the end we always reject it

We simply refuse to sell the national pride on the say so of some silly smart talkers who any way know nothing about what they are talking

That is why when Fernandez made certain unparliamentary comments we screamed but then realized he was just trying to put his deep anguish in words

This damn deal does not give us anything except few thousand tons of uranium and couple of very expensive reactors for which no market in US exist

And we loose everything from fissile material inventory ,to right to unconditional reprocessing to intrusive inspection to loss of energy security to souring of relationship with fuel suppliers to lack of public tust in govt to a possible expensive mid term poll to de motivation of our scientists etc etc

Let the deal go down the drain of history -it will be better for the nation
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Post by Arun_S »

Sanku wrote:The interesting question is that why are dots connecting now and not before?

My take is
1) People were taken in for some time by GOTUS; their stategy of pushing Dubya with his enomorous sincere love for India; which only he could do since only a fool can be that transparently sincere; while planning a backstab; worked very well. Some of the wise folks looked at Dubya "intentions" than what was the reality being written on the ground.

2) Dr Singh enjoyed a modicum of trust; his reputation was enhanced by the promising speech he gave in the parliament post J18. He has been loosing it steadily as time passes; first with attack on Sci Com and now with current antics of Sibal and Co.

3) The govt had a strong grip; thus nay sayers were muzzled as the left breaks the monopoly of Kangress. People are begining to find a voice.

So basically we were running in full steam without really stopping to think. This forced hiatus gave us all the time to reconsider and for the press to be free of the govt. pressure to tow its line and give the space to others.

Basically I think at the root; people are not willing to come to terms with the fact that a Indian PM could do what Dr Singh is doing

The break in trust (I will not call this a sell out or any of those terms) in terms of expectations from what was implicitly expected of a Indian PM all these years is so severe; that most Jingos find themselves unable to look at the reality for the damage it does not our psyche in terms of respect for GoI at the very end.

JM2P and IMVHO etc etc.
No Sir. The dot are connecting now and not before because some set of information is only as fresh as 2 months, and some bits and pieces came 2 weeks ago and it took some time for my brain neuron to fire and re-evaulate the bigger picture; and of course talking to fellow BRFites and BRF discussion makes 1+1 = 11. So I blame my human limitions to not connecting the dots sooner.
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Post by Sanku »

Arun_S wrote: No Sir. The dot are connecting now and not before because some set of information is only as fresh as 2 months, and some bits and pieces came 2 weeks ago and it took some time for my brain neuron to fire and re-evaulate the bigger picture; and of course talking to fellow BRFites and BRF discussion makes 1+1 = 11. So I blame my human limitions to not connecting the dots sooner.
Thats nice to know Arun_S; if we as a group have contributed positively towards a greater understanding that is something to feel happy about. I hope that in which case our understanding will actually percolate to ground and make a difference there as well.

However I still think that a lot of people are pro-deal (on the forum and off it) because they had a measure of confidence in the GoI helmsmann; and if he said it was good; most people would have thought that the opposition is a bunch of general Yahoo's indulging in disruptive opposition. I know of even senior folks in the Mil/Sci industry who thought on the above lines.

As Rye said; ideally we may count the message more important the messanger; who the messanger is matters.

As always JMVHO.

PS> Will you be able to share some of the information you recieved? At least could you please tell us whether the info. was purely strategic or was there a measure of Hyde act and the deal language technicality as well.
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Post by Shankar »

Besides the purchase of reactors, the purpose of this deal is also to enable us to acquire updated civilian nuclear technology which we could use in future in areas such as reprocessing, enrichment and heavy-water production. Since we already have indigenous technologies in all these fields, there should be no bar in providing improved technologies, under safeguards, if we need them. But the Hyde Act specifically denies such transfers, which goes against the letter and spirit of the July 18, 2005 joint statement.

On another front, the Hyde Act does not waive the need for India to seek and obtain US permission every time we wish to reprocess the irradiated imported fuel from our reactors. These US denials are not acceptable and the PM must clearly seek related corrective amendments to the Hyde Act, since the 123 agreement cannot remove these restrictions in law."
Dr A. Gopalakrishnan is a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Government of India. He can be reached at agk37@hotmail.com
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Post by Shankar »

Dr P.K. Iyengar, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, has said in an article( Asian Age): "The price we are being asked to pay by the US is too high: no testing, no reprocessing, no guarantees of future fuel supplies. Once we sign the deal, we will be at the mercy of the US and the Nuclear Suppliers Group for our energy security." The sources said that the supposed compromise on the 123 agreement was at best a "camouflage" for the Hyde Act, by which the contentious issues could be "dressed up" for scrutiny. The provisions will all remain, only part of the implementation might at best be delayed, the sources said.( in Asian Age, 1st June)
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Post by Calvin »

Never mind what was the yield. Just make more of them and don't get on any FMCO bandwagon unless you have enough numbers.
Ramana and Snow - excellent point, particularly since damage scales with 1/3 power of yield, it makes more sense to deploy more, smaller yield weapons. Practically, this means more missiles, effective sub-based force, and MIRV.

Additional testing is irrelevant, and a red herring.
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Post by ldev »

sanku wrote:semi joke>
BK IY BC PC Alexander etc etc. and me. What a select club.
</end semi joke>
After you have stopped preening and stroking yourself by including yourself yourself in such company as BK,IY, BC and PC Alexander, maybe you can do some thinking and post some numbers, rather than give bhashans. I have yet to see any numbers in any post of yours justifying your point of view. All that I see is that you take yourself as semi seriously to be in the company mentioned above above and state that the deal is bad.

See, bhashans dont mean a thing to me. Numbers do and how India will overcome its lack of domestic uranium resources to kick start its thorium reactors without waiting 40-80 years to make a dent. I have attempted over many posts in the past to do just that, provide numbers which IMO justify my position. If people such as you are unconvinced of my numbers, that fine. But from your side I have yet to any numbers. There are only so many ways that one can say that one doesent like the 123 agreement. You have now repeated yourself multiple times by now.

Unless you have something new to say, I think your posts are a waste of bandwith.
Last edited by ldev on 10 Sep 2007 15:56, edited 1 time in total.
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