Precisely because of what the NYT says and also very studiously omits to say. Most importantly, because this deal is vital to India's national interests and future, the window of opportunity is open and if you dont do it now, there is no certainty that this can get done again ever in the near term.What if the next election throws up a hung parliament and you have political uncertainty for the next 3 years.
What the NYT , echoing and egged on by the NPA is actually saying is that the this deal is too good for India and should not be offered , especially when a new administration comes to power. The Commies don't care about the merits of the deal, for them it is a visceral hatred of America and GW Bush (Indrajit Gupta's , the CPI fuddy duddy's, reason for opposing the deal, his own words on NDTV, "I hate George Boosh" , so no deal, with such worthies like him around, who doesn't know where personal prejudices end and public good begins, India doesn't need enemies). The deal might not be available after another 3 months and maybe never.
Consider the flip side. You have possibly the entire deal to lose by waiting. What do you gain if you wait. Will you get a better deal ? Any deal at all ?
Also think about what NY Times studiously avoids saying. China, the country that actually gave material and designs to Pakistan, violating everything in the NPT, NSG and CTBT, and which Pakistan opened Xerox Khan's Wal Mart with and hawked it to all the bad apples in the world, gets away scot free, and freely imports reactors and material from all over the world, including US, Russia, France and Japan!. Why should India bear the cross for the NPT and CTBT or whatever the NPA's fetishize about. We never even signed up in the first place. What do they do about China which broke every rule there was to break and actively proliferated!. India succeeded in getting out of that idiocy of such an arrangement and the straitjackets imposed on it.
More importantly, with the nuclear thing out of the way, the obstacles to India's engagement with the rest of the world and open the taps to technology and closer enagement with the rest of the world is open. That is alone is a good enough reason to do the deal in haste!