India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

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RajeshA
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

Would somebody please sneak into Pranabda's Office and post the second draft here please! 8)
harbans
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by harbans »

The issue is whether they can order the countries that really matter, to NOT trade with India.

They will certainly meet up in case India tests..and thats irrespective of whether they write it in v2 or not. They will also meet up to decide on fuel supplies cut off not by individual countries but as a group. It's here the wording will go hazy to accommodate India. I'm also certain that any future tests by India will never include any stuff under IAEA safeguards. So any sanctioning of fuel does'nt really hurt India's strategic infrastructure but it's innocent safeguarded facilities. These smaller countries have not yet grasped that India is defacto now in the NWS club by virtue of segregation of it's military and civilian facilities. India cannot explain this to them this juncture and thats why GOI is telling the US to explain this to the knuckleheads..JMT
John Snow
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by John Snow »

Philip garu>>> Prof Govardhan Mehta is not a "top Nuclear" scientist, he is a top notch synthetic Organic chemist, was head of IIsc when his visa was initially refused. Just FYI

Mehta's carbonium ion is named after him.
enqyoob
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

Its not that they haven't grasped it - it is that they see the writing on the wall. What 40 new reactors in India means, is that India becomes the reliable, low-cost supplier of nuclear components. Maybe it's US companies with facilities in India, where the anti-nuke regulations are not as bad as in the US or Oirope, so the Oiropean competitive position is eroded.

Today Japan has monopoly in large reactor vessels because the US steel industry has gone dead from lack of demand. This will change swiftly. Note that Mittal is now the world's largest steel producer. Mittal-Reliance-Westinghouse could outbid Japanese companies for the reactor vessel market in short order.

Same for turbomachines. Today Austria is a leading producer of large steam turbines etc. GE-L&T or GE-Tata may render the Austrian suppliers irrelevant.

In addition to their other problems, the Oiropeans and New Zealanders have built in severe regulatory costs because they weren't seriously challenged in the marketplace. Now suddenly the mat is getting pulled from under them, and they have no hope of getting popular support for dismantling all their holier-than-thou regulations.

OTOH, in the US, the anti-nuke sentiment is far down now because going to nukes beats the heck out of signing the Kyoto Protocol.

Ultimately, the strategic interest of the US in linking with India on nuclear technology is very simple - this is the best way to restore US competitiveness and economic survival against the onslaught of the Oiropeans and Japan on the top end and the Chinese from the bottom.

By the same token, the Austrians and the New Zealanders and Irish can see the writing on the reactor walls. This is why there is no easy solution.

Any "discussions" explaining the deal via the Ambassadors is probably some sort of "no-compete" assurances or even some purchase assurances to buy time for the minnows to change their domestic realities. Maybe Austria will be assured of some nice contracts to develop hydro power in India, or maybe even some steam turbines for nuke plants. I don't know how you reassure New Zealand - fix a few Test matches? Withdraw the IPL contracts of Scott Styris and others? Buy cows? Promise a contract to develop the geothermal resources above the Lok Sabha?
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by NRao »

N^3,

Everything in the universe is destroyed only to be reborn (what else is new eh?). SO NSGs destruction is really the rebirth of a new order - India as a NWS. Which is what J18 was!! Ouch. Are these guys proving MMS right? OMG. Have I been misreading MMS all this time?

While there also please recycle the fig leaf:
On the other hand, New Zealand was willing to risk its entire military relationship with the US in the 1980s over the issue of nuclear weapons on US Navy ships.
(NZ did do a great thing at that point in time - no two ways about it. But, the real question is what has she done since to disarm the world of nukes and punish those that have actually proliferated?

Her current position is either no or very, very low risk. Neither of which will help either side of the equation: proliferation (India has a far, far better non-proliferation record than NZ) or Indian civilian energy needs.

NZ should be carrying greater risks if she really believes in non-prolifeartion. And, India should support her 100% if she does that.)
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

Actually New Zealand has stunning beauty, if one wants to make movies. However it is seldom, that these days Bollywood wants to have pristine nature. Its all skyscraper stuff. :cry:
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

India sticks to clean NSG waiver sans conditions: IANS
Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, a key Indian interlocutor on the nuclear deal, also underlined that New Delhi will not accept any conditions outside the July 18, 2005 civil nuclear understanding between India and the US.

“We have done everything that was possible. We can’t accept any more conditionalities,” Kakodkar said on the sidelines of a lecture he delivered on “Managing Atoms for Human Welfare” at Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), India’s premier strategic think tank.

He was responding to reporters’ queries about about likely changes in the proposed waiver in the NSG.

The whole thing has to be within the parameters of the July 18, 2005 civil nuclear understanding,” he underlined.

Language may change but the substance will not change,” he emphasized when asked about speculation about likely changes in the language of the draft of the NSG exemption.

“The country has all along a standing policy and it remains,” he said while referring to India’s volunatary moratorium on nuclear testing.

“I am an optimist. I am a realist. I always keep my feet on the ground,” he said when asked whether he was confident about winning a clean waiver from the NSG.
harbans
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by harbans »

Narayan Ji thank you for an insightful post. Indeed some of these countries may be looking at vested business interests which are more comfortable with the elephant outside the tent. Nice angle to view their stand from.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

There is one more major red flag for the "NPA" minnows. This is Recycling. For once I am departing from my policy of only citing kindergarten stuff, and I am quoting first-hand , very recent, authoritative stuff straight from the Director's chamcha of the IAEA, speaking to an audience full of new clear experts:

For the nuclear trade to take off, recipient countries who have signed the NPT are demanding iron-clad assurances that they will have uninterrrupted fuel supply (IOW, it's not only India that wants this condition). So how do you combine this with the problem of safeguarding the waste? Nobody except the Pakis and their buddies the Somali Pirates, want supertankers full of nuclear waste cruising around the oceans. Safeguarding waste in place in 50 countries is a recipe for disaster, plus being prohibitively expensive.

So the solution being **** peddled by the IAEA ***** is to establish centralized storage plus reprocessing facilities in, say 4 or 6 locations around the world. US, Japan, France, Russia, India.

India is a critical element of this plan, being central to the Eastern Hemisphere, and accessible from most other places.

This means a large jump in the recycling business in India, and if you read kgoan's thesis on the Value of Garbage, you'll recognize some other VERY large implications here. Once again, this renders the fragmented recycling industry irrelevant.

If you want to produce recycling equipment, sensors, etc etc. wouldn't you start doing it near the biggest garbage dumps?

So this is why the minnows have found such Deep Commitment to opposing India's desire for free access to the "R" part.

As in all things, whenever politicians "Stand Firm On Principle" etc., you KNOW there is baksheesh behind it.

Now u c why the IAEA is so keen on the deal, and NSG minnows are not.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by Rupesh »

Why should we be a dumping ground for nuclear waste. there is always a risk of leak polluting the surrounding environment and our's is a densely populated country. I seriously doubt if japan will be part of centralized storage of nuc waste considering the strong public opposition there.
enqyoob
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

For the answer to that, Rupesh, you will have to understand the Kgoan Garbage Valuation Thesis, which is Classified Info at this stage of the game.
RajeshA
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

U.S. seeks way out of India nuclear deal impasse: Reuters
"All the talk about shock, betrayal, surprise has an element of the histrionic. These issues have been on the NSG agenda for two years," said one senior NSG diplomat.

"The U.S. was quite inactive in lobbying countries with known concerns about the deal before the Aug 21-22 meeting," another diplomat told Reuters.

"Their failure to lobby actively may well have been because they were hoping to use other countries to do their dirty work, and insert conditions they were not in a position to insert themselves because they feared the likely reaction from India."
That's the whole point. US did not lobby. Now it is finding out, that their tactic of getting others to include conditions and India accepting them is a non-starter. :lol:
Washington had been expected to rework the waiver draft in consultation with New Delhi for consideration at a second NSG meeting set for Sept. 4-5 in Vienna next to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency headquarters.

But diplomats, asking for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said the redrafting had run into Indian challenges and the U.S. envoy to New Delhi protested to the leading six NSG hardliners at a meeting on Thursday.

Washington was shocked and India felt betrayed by the unproductive NSG meeting 10 days ago, U.S. Ambassador David Mulford told envoys from New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands, according to the diplomats.

As a result, Mulford said negotiations with India on proposed amendments to the draft were in serious difficulty and the whole effort was in danger of breakdown, the diplomats told Reuters.
Time for Mulford to get panicky.
RajeshA
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

One can also win a few Kiwi hearts by announcing a strong cooperation with International Whaling Commission (IWC) to patrol the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary. However then one can forget cooperation from Japan and Norway. :(

OK, just fooling around with Ideas. There is nothing on this earth which can impress NZ so forget the Waiver.
RajeshA
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

AUTHOR WARNING

Nuclear deal in dire trouble by PureFool ButWhy: rediff.com
It's futile for India to blame the US for the 'debacle.' It was naive, even foolhardy, for New Delhi to think that many NSG states, which only have a limited interest in partnering India, would meekly go along with Washington. In fact, it's India that proved unreasonably inflexible and unyielding.

Second, India underrated the opposition to the special NSG waiver especially from States like New Zealand and Austria which take nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament sincerely -- New Zealand to the point of barring US warships from its waters because Washington won't say as a matter of policy if any of them carry nuclear warheads.

India's credibility in matters nuclear has taken a beating since 1998 when it blasted its way into the nuclear club after having championed disarmament for 50 years and declared that it won't embrace the 'repugnant' doctrine of nuclear deterrence, or relying on an atomic balance-of-terror for security.

It's not good enough for India to offer a unilateral moratorium on testing, which can be withdrawn without notice. Many countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland [Images], Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, besides Austria and New Zealand, probably sincerely believe that India must undertake a more robust commitment by agreeing to forgo nuclear commerce with the world in case it tests again.
The Traitor smoketh Joint and gets high!
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by svinayak »

RajeshA wrote:
It's not good enough for India to offer a unilateral moratorium on testing, which can be withdrawn without notice. Many countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland [Images], Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, besides Austria and New Zealand, probably sincerely believe that India must undertake a more robust commitment by agreeing to forgonuclear commerce with the world in case it tests again.
The author is correct.

More testing has to be done and only then this will move ahead
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by Manny »

IF not actually test (It would be costly..deal or no deal), at least India needs to constantly put the threat out there...like as though they are going to....(Some convenient leaks) so these Ayotollahs are always on their feet dancing on the hot tin roof! That alone is enough to make the NPT irrelevant.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
ramana
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

Manny its the NPA that put out the trail balloons of India is going to test. This has happened time and again.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by RajeshA »

OK, we know everybody in the world has got some very hard views on Indo-US Nuclear Deal. So where does Sarah Palin stand on it? :lol:
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by Manny »

Sara Palin is hot!

Sorry for the OT. :lol:
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

Bismillah! The Republicans have won the election! :eek: :eek: The closest the Democracts have ever come to THAT is Donna Rice, no relation to the SoS.

If McCain conks out, as is highly likely, Palin would be the first wimmens PM of Great Satan.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by NRao »

Manny wrote:Sara Palin is hot!

Sorry for the OT. :lol:
The Republicans have proliferated AND broken the Test Ban Treaty in one selection. (http://bp2.blogger.com/_uExTzMIDd1Y/R2O ... -Vogue.jpg)

Nothing new in the following, but a nice collection of news items:

'India's demands are too unreasonable for NSG'

NSG failure is a failure on the part of the US and Bush in particular. Even if the 123 is not passed it does not matter, the NSG waiver should go through.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

Looks like th draft is with India to review before being presented. It was worked with SS Menon. Its in India for dept review.

Google Cache

Look at the headlines from the Indian press.

I think one of the big obejectives of the foreign investment in Indian media is to ensure that a nationalist press doesnt develop. It was earlier alientated due to Left/Liberal leanings of the reporters and the anti-govt leanings of the owners who were mostly industrial houses at odds with INC. Pre-Independece the press was British owned except for pockets here and there. Now foreign investment has ensured it stays anti-national.

How can the Fourth estate be anti-national and democracy survive?
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by Arun_S »

US to share revised draft as India hopes for clean waiver
THE BIG DEAL: Indian diplomats have said that they will accept only cosmetic changes to the draft.

New Delhi: The US is expected to share with India the revised text of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) draft on Friday, five days ahead of the second NSG meeting in Vienna. It's not clear whether India has received the draft as yet though.

There are at least 20 countries that have proposed as many as 50 amendments to the draft.

Indian diplomats have said that they will accept only cosmetic changes to the draft. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon was in Washignton to finetune the language.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday reiterated India's insistence on a clean clean waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but he made no reference to unconditional exemption.

"What we want we have made very clear. We are interested in the clean waiver from the NSG. We have presented our case and made our position clear to interlocutors. The NSG couldn't finalise things on August 21 and August 22 and it is now reconvening on September 4 and 5. We are talking to interlocutors and directly talking to NSG countries. But now we have to wait for the outcome of these talks," Mukherjee said.

Some NSG members like Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and Norway are pushing for adding extra conditions like the termination of nuclear cooperation in case of India conducting a nuclear test and periodic review of India's compliance with non-proliferation norms before granting a waiver to New Delhi from the existing rules of nuclear trade.

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, a key Indian interlocutor on the nuclear deal, also underlined that New Delhi will not accept any conditions outside the July 18, 2005 civil nuclear understanding between India and the US.

"We have done everything that was possible. We can't accept any more conditionalities," Kakodkar said on the sidelines of a lecture he delivered on Managing Atoms for Human Welfare at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, India's premier strategic think tank.

"The whole thing has to be within the parameters of the July 18, 2005 civil nuclear understanding. Language may change but the substance will not change. The country has all along a standing policy and it remains," he underlined.

A few weeks ago, Mukherjee had earlier warned that India will not be pushed beyond what is in the draft waiver.

"We have to see what kind of amendments come. Then only we can decide. But we cannot accept prescriptive conditionalities," he said.

India was reportedly unhappy with the draft of the NSG waiver shown by the US. Reports had said the draft underscores non-proliferation issues and also did not give India the unconditional exemption it has sought.

Reportedly, the draft said if India carried out a nuclear test, supplier countries could review nuclear cooperation with this country.

India is worried that this could make the NSG waiver unimplementable, discouraging nuclear trade with supplier countries such as France or Russia.

In fact Government sources said the waiver draft reflected the concerns of countries like New Zealand and Austria that have no nuclear industry and therefore no stake in commerce with India.

However, nuclear experts believe India will not lose much.

India Inc Looking Forward to N-Deal

With the nuclear deal looking close to completion, companies are getting ready to take advantage of it.

Sources have told Network 18 that Reliance Industries is looking to foray into nuclear power generation.

The company is in talks with a French nuclear power company and is searching for about eight to ten sites in India.

When contacted RIL refused to comment on this market speculation. Mukesh Ambani said in June that he sees a potential growth in alternative energy

(With inputs from agencies)
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

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US seeks way out of India nuclear deal impasse
Friday , August 29, 2008 at 07:18:10
Vienna, August 29: The United States has told six nations its bid to lift a global ban on nuclear trade with India has stumbled over their objections and pressed them at a New Delhi meeting to relent, diplomats said on Friday.

Members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group have balked at approving a waiver to its rules allowing business with India without conditions to help finalise Washington's 2005 civilian nuclear cooperation deal with New Delhi.

An Aug. 21-22 NSG meeting dissolved inconclusively after up to 20 member states called for changes to the US waiver draft to ensure Indian access to foreign nuclear markets would not indirectly benefit its atomic bomb programme.

The US-India deal has dismayed pro-disarmament nations and campaigners since India is outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed nuclear bombs in the 1970s with Western technology imported ostensibly for peaceful atomic energy.

Washington had been expected to rework the waiver draft in consultation with New Delhi for consideration at a second NSG meeting set for Sept. 4-5 in Vienna next to the UN nuclear watchdog agency headquarters.

But diplomats, asking for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said the redrafting had run into Indian challenges and the US envoy to New Delhi protested to the leading six NSG hardliners at a meeting on Thursday.

Washington was shocked and India felt betrayed by the unproductive NSG meeting 10 days ago, US Ambassador David Mulford told envoys from New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands, according to the diplomats.

As a result, Mulford said negotiations with India on proposed amendments to the draft were in serious difficulty and the whole effort was in danger of breakdown, the diplomats said.

‘NON-PROLIFERATION BUREAUCRATS’

He was quoted as saying ‘non-proliferation bureaucrats’ in Vienna seemed out of touch with political leadership and if they were going to insist on ‘the gold standard of non-proliferation’, there would be no waiver agreement.

Mulford, diplomats said, urged the six to ‘make a strategic and political choice’ that may not be perfect in NPT terms but was the best achievable, given the shaky Indian governing coalition's political inability to accept major NSG conditions.

India has insisted on a ‘clean, unconditional’ NSG waiver. Above all, it rejects any change that would end its right to test nuclear arms even though US legislation itself mandates a halt to trade with India in that event of another test.

Washington and some allies assert the deal will shift India, the world's largest democracy, towards the non-proliferation mainstream and combat global warming by fostering use of low-polluting nuclear energy in developing economies.

"While there is still a distance to go, the proposal to give India a clean exemption from global nuclear trade standards is in deep trouble," Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association think tank in Washington wrote in a commentary on Thursday.

Some diplomats said that if a revised US draft was not circulated by Friday, there might not be enough time to scrutinise it and finalise positions for a Sept 4-5 meeting.

Barring an NSG decision in early September, the US Congress may run out of time for final ratification of the U.S.-India deal before it adjourns at the end of the month for autumn elections. That would leave the deal in indefinite limbo.

"All the talk about shock, betrayal, surprise has an element of the histrionic. These issues have been on the NSG agenda for two years," said one senior NSG diplomat.

"The US was quite inactive in lobbying countries with known concerns about the deal before the Aug 21-22 meeting," another diplomat said.

"Their failure to lobby actively may well have been because they were hoping to use other countries to do their dirty work, and insert conditions they were not in a position to insert themselves because they feared the likely reaction from India."
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

Buried in the above report is this nugget
But diplomats, asking for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said the redrafting had run into Indian challenges and the US envoy to New Delhi protested to the leading six NSG hardliners at a meeting on Thursday.
Which explains Pranab Mukherjee's statement now and the lifafa chatterati's anti-India headlines.

US is taking two step approach : Talk down to the six holdouts and more importantly putting in extra words i.e. more conditions in the waiver language. S S Menon seems to be on board but then he might have looked at it and let Delhi review it. Just because he looked at it doesnt mean he agreed to it. I thought he was also on private visit to attend his son's marriage on West coast.


India finds that unacceptable as its not in line with the J18 agreement. Thats where the situation is. And thats why the pin drop silence as phones are being worked.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by svinayak »

ramana wrote:Buried in the above report is this nugget
But diplomats, asking for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said the redrafting had run into Indian challenges and the US envoy to New Delhi protested to the leading six NSG hardliners at a meeting on Thursday.
Which explains Pranab Mukherjee's statement now and the lifafa chatterati's anti-India headlines.

US is taking two step approach : Talk down to the six holdouts and more importantly putting in extra words i.e. more conditions in the waiver language. S S Menon seems to be on board but then he might have looked at it and let Delhi review it. Just because he looked at it doesnt mean he agreed to it. I thought he was also on private visit to attend his son's marriage on West coast.


India finds that unacceptable as its not in line with the J18 agreement. Thats where the situation is. And thats why the pin drop silence as phones are being worked.
There are certain sections on the Indian side who do not mind those amendments and are happy. They are working on the PR to fool the rest of the people to accept what ever is given.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

by same token there are others who are fighting and need the support. One can see who they are by their open statemetns and who the others are by their silence or anonymity.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

Interesting point not noted by us.
India wants clean waiver
India wants 'clean' waiver
Agencies
New Delhi Aug 29: In an apparent dilution of its stand on securing exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, India today said it is seeking a "clean" waiver from the 45-nation grouping.

"We have made it quite clear that we are interested in clean waiver from the NSG. We have presented our case. We have made our position clear to interlocutors," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters here.

He was responding whether India was getting an "unconditional" waiver from the NSG after demands for amendment to the draft waiver.

Mukherjee, unlike the earlier comments, did not talk about India's insistence on the "unconditional" waiver.

New Delhi has all through maintained that the exemption should be "unconditional" failing which it will not accept it.

Soon after the August 21-22 meeting of the NSG failed to arrive at a decision on granting waiver to India because of objections by several member countries, Mukherjee had said India would not accept any "prescriptive conditions" in the revised draft.

This stand was maintained despite the US asking India not to talk about "unconditional" waiver as it was "provocative" and could create difficulties.

The US has been saying that it was trying for a "clean exemption".

Mukherjee's comments came amid indications that a number of amendments have been made to the revised draft that will be presented at the NSG meet on September 4-5 in Vienna.



So there are conditions in the draft. And all this charade inthe Indian press is to allow them to pass.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by svinayak »

Acharya wrote:
There are certain sections on the Indian side who do not mind those amendments and are happy. They are working on the PR to fool the rest of the people to accept what ever is given.
It is the same thing I was talking about
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by ramana »

Sever misgivings in India

Sunk Deal
Sunk deal…
…Unless the PM is prepared to sell-out on the Indian deterrent, says N.V.Subramanian.

29 August 2008: The Indo-US nuclear deal looks sunk. After deceiving Indian Parliament, breaking away from the Left, suicidally aligning with the Samajwadi Party, and indulging in the most shameful purchase of MPs to win the trust vote, the Manmohan Singh government won't likely be able to get the deal past the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), whose forty-five member-states have to consensually approve nuclear trade with India. India was expecting China to object, but some of the closest allies of the United States, Japan, The Netherlands, Ireland, Norway and New Zealand, among twenty NSG states, have brought fifty-some unacceptable amendments and modifications in the waiver necessary to do nuclear commerce with India. Unless the Manmohan Singh government is planning a sell-out on India's military nuclear programme, it cannot accept the NSG conditions.

Questions arise. Is the US unable or unwilling to arm-twist the NSG to give India the deal that even in the present form compromises India's deterrence? On what US assurances did the Manmohan Singh government destroy the consensus that existed on core foreign policy issues and obsessively and destructively pursue the deal? What happens to Indo-US relations if the deal, made so much to be the centre of it all, dies? And what does it tell about the reliability of the United States as a "friend", leave alone an ally?

The last question first. The US is not a reliable friend or ally. If in pursuit of its national interests, it has to sell a friend down the river, nothing will stop it. Parvez Musharraf should know, who shared a meal with the US president, George W.Bush, at the Camp David presidential retreat. Taiwan should know. Nixon and every US president that followed him privileged Mainland China over Taiwan, and Carter infamously accepted the one-China policy, a cue to the rest of the free world to follow. Only the US Congress, which the Taiwanese had the sense to cultivate for long, prevented American presidents from handing over Taiwan lock, stock and barrel to the Chinese. Afghanistan and Iraq may well follow South Vietnam's disastrous course in falling to opposed local forces once the US withdraws. And if, today, Pakistan is a failed state, thank, in part, the United States, which permitted generations of military presidents to ruin it.

That the US is not a reliable friend or ally is well-known. So, to that extent, if the failure of the deal prevents a US embrace of India, it's all to the good. Whatever anyone says, the United States is in decline, and the Iraq War is propelling it faster down the chute. It would be a liability to be closer to the US at the risk of alienating Russia, China, and so forth, when, taking all factors into account, India would be better served pursuing strategic autonomy.

Question two: What happens to Indo-US relations if the deal collapses? Some embarrassed unproductive months would follow, coinciding with a new US administration, and likely, within weeks of that, or perhaps earlier, a new Indian government. At the risk of being proved wrong, this writer analyzes that the NDA will form the next government. But whoever does, picking up the pieces of Indo-US relations won't be so difficult as to imbue it with strategic purpose and conviction. And without that conviction, no US administration will spend money, time and effort in improving relations with, at the end of the day, an Asian country with great power ambitions but zilch resolve.

That leads to question three. Why is the deal in trouble? And rephrasing the last question a little, was the Manmohan Singh government mislead into investing all its political capital in the deal? No clear answers, but surmises are possible. To use the DAE chairman, Anil Kakodkar's phrase, although he has since switched positions, the United States began "moving the goalposts" after the 18 July 2005 Manmohan Singh-Bush joint statement. The statement itself is flawed, which has been considered in earlier pieces on this website written by this writer, but the Indian government sold the line that the statement recognized India as an advanced nuclear power, and would accord it all the necessary privileges.

Nyet. Reprocessing and enrichment rights and technologies were denied, and the Henry Hyde Act legislated those denials, plus threatened unraveling of the deal if India conducted explosive tests. All those conditionalities are making their way into the so-called NSG "waiver", and voices are speaking up that India must sign the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons' state and accept CTBT. If the US hadn't wanted the Hyde Act endorsed in the NSG "waiver", it would have gotten its way, but it didn't. A report in Delhi's Pioneer newspaper says that the US did not commit its top officials to the NSG "waiver" discussions, and that it "lead India up the garden path".

If so, the Manmohan Singh government is more incompetent than it appears, and is certainly not to be trusted with strategic negotiations and on foreign-policy matters. If the deal had gone through, the US would have been able to sell some reactors, but more crucial, India would have been brought into the non-proliferation regime though unconditional facility-specific safeguards, explosive testing would effectively have been banned forever, and this environment, plus the review and reporting processes, and the softening of successive Indian governments, would have eventually made it impossible to keep our deterrence. There's still an outside chance that the Manmohan Singh government will sell out to the NSG, and only effective opposition in and outside Parliament may stop the PM, although he wasn't stopped before.

N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. Har-Anand has published his new second novel, Courtesan of Storms.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

I hope they put in some Big words like "terminological inexactitudes" and "non-prescriptive conditionalities". Oooo!
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by NRao »

That also explains AKs broad side.

So, conditions are coming. To be broken of course. Thanks to the US.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by sivab »

We won’t accept new conditions: Kakodkar
India will not accept any new conditions being imposed by countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) opposed to granting New Delhi a “clean” waiver to engage in civil nuclear trade, Anil Kakodkar said on Friday.

The AEC chairman said India would stick to the joint statement of July 18, 2005, signed by US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“We have done everything that was required. Whatever has to be done would have to be within the ambit of July 18, 2005, declaration,” Kakodkar said in response to reporters’ questions at the sidelines of a lecture organised by the Indian Pugwash Conference.

Repeatedly asked whether India would be willing to amending the draft circulated to the 45-nation NSG, he replied: “Don’t go by the wording. What is important is the substance of the draft and not it’s wording.”

Asked whether he was hopeful that the NSG would approve a clean waiver for India during their next meeting in Vienna on September 4-5, Kakodkar responded: “I have always been hopeful and would continue to be so.”

Separately, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “We have made it quite clear that we are interested in clean waiver from the NSG. We have presented our case. We have made our position clear to interlocutors.”

“We shall have to wait for final outcome which will be available to us after the September 4-5 meeting,”
he added.

Earlier, Kakodkar allayed fears that the country’s nuclear installations could come under threat of terror attacks.

“Security of our nuclear installations is quite adequate. Apart from the Central Industrial Security Force, a group comprising of paramilitary forces, armed forces and the intelligence agencies monitors the security arrangements,” he said.

The AEC chief said the 9/11 attacks in the US were responsible for a fear psychosis the world over and misplaced perceptions had aggravated the threat of “nuclear terrorism” in the minds of the people.

Kakodkar said there were a lot of misconceptions about dangers of the nuclear material, and there was a need to make people aware of the real situation.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by sivab »

http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/30/stories ... 250100.htm
India studying revised NSG draft
Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: A revised version of the draft waiver that the United States circulated to the Nuclear Suppliers Group last month was handed over to India on Thursday and was still being studied by a team of Indian officials till late Friday evening.

Among those involved in the exercise, which is being led by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, are Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar and other top officials from the Department of Atomic Energy, Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of External Affairs, including R.B. Grover and D.B. Venkatesh Varma who have been part of India’s negotiating team with the U.S. since 2005.

Officials familiar with the issue refused to provide any information on the contents of the new draft, or the changes, if any, India was seeking to make. It is not clear, for example, if modified language is being exchanged back and forth between New Delhi and Washington or whether the entire drafting process might require one further iteration.


With the 45-nation NSG set to meet again in plenary session on August 4, time would appear to be running out for both the U.S. and India. “Member states will need at least five or six days to study the draft,” a European diplomat told The Hindu on Friday, adding that if the draft were not put into circulation by Saturday, the September 4-5 meeting of the nuclear club might have to be postponed by a week. Another diplomat said that while smaller countries “may not need very much time to get high-level political decisions as we have smaller bureaucracies than others,” countries like Japan and China might well need more time.

While the Bush administration is keen to secure NSG clearance next week and send the 123 agreement for Congressional approval on September 8, Indian officials say their own principal priority is not speed but ensuring the soundness of the draft waiver.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by sivab »

http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/30/stories ... 491200.htm
Group of Six may be flexible at NSG
Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI: The Nuclear Suppliers Group naysayers have more or less dropped their insistence on any prescriptive language requiring India’s future adherence to non-proliferation benchmarks such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, according to a range of European diplomatic sources familiar with the issue.

But the Group of Six likeminded nations — Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland — continue to press for language that could involve negative consequences for India in the event of Delhi abandoning its unilateral testing moratorium.

“Compromise formula”

A diplomat from the G-6 told The Hindu that the group had handed over on Friday morning a ‘compromise’ formula for a testing post-condition that “ought to satisfy India and us,” though he declined to provide details.

At the same time, there are signs of a possible thawing of the hardline attitudes seen within the NSG last week.

“Cosmetic changes”

Asked about the possibility of the G-6 accepting purely “cosmetic changes” to the original draft, something Indian officials say that is all they are prepared to accept, one diplomat from the group said “why not?”

Not the only forum

“Our countries wanted an expression of our strong views to come out but this does not mean the NSG is the only forum for this,” he said.

The diplomat added that the group was looking at the NSG waiver for India as a “political” rather than “technical” issue.

The diplomat said that while U.S. Ambassador David Mulford had “consulted” with Delhi-based ambassadors from the six countries on Thursday, the “real talking by the Americans is being done in Washington, Vienna and our capital cities, not here.”
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by sivab »

http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/30/stories ... 511200.htm
I expect clean waiver: Kakodkar
Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: India on Friday said it expected the Nuclear Suppliers Group to give it a clean waiver when the 45-nation body meets next month to consider its case for an exemption.

Speaking to journalists here, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said India expected no provision to be attached other than what was mentioned in the July 18, 2005 joint statement by U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Calling himself a realist, Dr. Kakodkar rated high India’s chances of getting an exemption from the NSG guidelines to break its over three decades isolation from global nuclear commerce. “I expect a clean waiver without any preconditions,” said the nuclear scientist, who has been closely associated with the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by putnanja »

Ahead of NSG meet, PM holds discussions
NEW DELHI: As it watches with "cautious optimism" next week's meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held high-level consultations to assess the situation and consider options available if things do not work out as desired.

Singh has been discussing with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar the issue amid the hope that 45-nation grouping will give a "clean" and "unconditional" waiver.

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who is in the US and in touch with the American officials there, is also in constant contact with Mukherjee and Kakodkar over the issue.

The NSG, which failed to arrive at a final decision on the proposed India waiver at the August 21-22 meet, will consider a revised draft at its next meeting on September 4-5.

In the revised draft of the waiver, New Delhi is expecting "minimal changes" and hopes that it will have a language and "semantics which can be sold" to the people of the country without any problems, sources said.

"We are cautiously optimistic," a source said.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by enqyoob »

Acharyaji, I cannot resist this one....

Acharya wrote:
Acharya wrote:

"There are certain sections on the Indian side who do not mind those amendments and are happy. They are working on the PR to fool the rest of the people to accept what ever is given."


It is the same thing I was talking about


Er... I see that we are into quoting ourselves as the authoritative validating sources for our opinions? 8)
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by svinayak »

narayanan wrote:
Er... I see that we are into quoting ourselves as the authoritative validating sources for our opinions? 8)
I wanted to see how many will get it
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 23 July 2008

Post by harbans »

IN a way i think if Indian diplomacy and politico's hold there heads and red lines clear like AK is doing here..we've achieved a great breakthrough. I'd be even proud of MMS and SG if they walk through at this stage without compromising red lines. Even though i'm very much in favor this deal for all it's energy security, carbon emmission control, strategic imperatives and etc..What i find very very positive in all this, is Indians will break through their distrust of fellow Indians trying and selling their country off. I'll be very happy if that happens as a fallout of this deal. It will be an immense positive for me personally. JMT though..
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