CPIM Seeks an Escape Route as Industry Supports Nuke Deal
Congress party says its Government would not collapse
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
INDIA'S ruling Congress party says its Government would not collapse over a nuclear deal with the US, despite warnings by its communist allies of "serious consequences" if it does not put the pact on hold.
The police continued to find and defuse bombs throughout the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Sunday as No one dares to disobey the corporate dictates as Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson adopt a tough stance in face of the Leftist threat of dire consequences. After the meetings of CPIM Polit Bureau and Central Committe, it is quite clear that the Left is not going to pull down the GOI on Asian Nato issue. Rather it is seeking for proper avenue for a great escape and Congress Leadership is not obliging. Internal security conditions deteriorate as Hyderabad Bomb Blast heralds the esclation of War against Terrorism right into the heart of India. Sangh Parivar while supporting the Left stance on NUKE Deal continues the intense hatred campaign against Dalits as well as Muslims and demands revival of Pota.Virtually ruling out revival of tough anti-terror laws like POTA, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said on Sunday that despite having intelligence information on likely terror strikes, it was not possible to determine when and where terrorists could strike.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight chaired a high-level meeting to assess the security scenario in the aftermath of last night's twin blasts in Hyderabad. The meeting was attended by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who briefed the Prime Minister about his visit to the Andhra Pradesh capital earlier in the day, media advisor to the Prime Minister Sanjaya Baru said.The meeting was also attended by National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar and Director of the Intelligence Bureau P C Haldar.
On the other hand, Refusing to abide by the recent Supreme Court judgement, President Pervez Musharraf has said that exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would not be allowed to return to Pakistan to take part in the general elections slated for later this year.
"The government will neither allow the Sharif brothers to come back nor would they be given a free hand if they chose to return. If Nawaz Sharif is not honouring his 'exile' deal, the government will put him behind bars or send him back to Saudi Arabia," The News quoted Musharraf as saying here.
Considering petitions filed by the deposed Premier and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the apex court had ruled on Thursday that they were free to return to the Islamic nation after seven years in "forced" exile. Musharraf yesterday held an emergency meeting of the ruling party MPs at the Presidency here amid reports that Sharif might return home possibly by next month to lead Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's campaign in the general polls in Pakistan.
The Left parties have chalked a big plan to hit the streets in September against the UPA government. From naval exercises to price rise, a host of items are there on the red radar, which will be topped by the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Politically, the Left parties want to showcase the `people-friendly’ version of their anti-US stand as they perceive that the nuclear deal is incomprehensible to most of their voters.Within Parliament too, the Left intends to raise issues like the Srikrishna Commission report on the Mumbai riots, the recommendations of the Sachar Committee, price rise and farmers’ suicides.
Ratan Tata has declared already that the Indo US deal is in the best interest of India and now the Indian Industry stands behind Tatas. Let us see how the equations changes as Money is most needed to face an election anywhere in this world. Even a regimented party like CPIM may not dare to close the financial options!According to an Indian Express report,Perturbed by political crisis over the Indo-US nuclear deal, top CEOs have expressed fears that a mid-term poll forced on the country will derail the rhythm of the economy that is growing by over 8.5 per cent.According to a survey conducted by industry chamber Assocham, as many as 91 per cent of the CEOs interviewed felt that it made no sense to impose elections on the issue of nuclear deal which would do good to the country. The industry chamber surveyed around 235 CEOs. Nearly 73 per cent of the CEOs felt that snap polls would certainly derail the GDP growth, Assocham said in a statement. Political activities have an important bearing on the health of an economy. The ongoing turmoil would halt the growth momentum, Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot said. As many as 67 per cent of the industry leaders felt that if a new government assumes power and revisits plan policies in the initial stages of the 11th five year plan, it is likely to hamper the growth of corporates who have made long-term plans based on these policies.
Indo-US Nuclear Deal: India's mindset holds the key
Mridul
24 August 2007, Friday
Views: 290 Comments: 0
The nuclear deal, no doubt, is a tight rope for India and can prove to be a costly gamble. But it is up to the Indian government how it utilizes the deal and derives as much benefit as possible without compromising on our national interests.
SOME OF THE aspects associated with the Indo-US nuclear deal are being overlooked by both the concerned parties i.e. the scientists and the politicians (mainly the Left parties). The deal can be seen in favour as well as against the national interest.
As far India is concerned, it is up to its political and military establishment how they utilize the nuclear deal and take maximum benefit of it. The United States has done something out of the ordinary by formulating and presenting a deal to India, which could be opposed by many Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries, as India is not a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Though many see the N-deal as a potential answer to India’s growing energy demand, it seems to be part of a long-term strategic plan to strengthen India so as to serve American interests in the region. But there’s nothing wrong in such kind of a motive till both the countries are its beneficiaries.
Most of the scientists would agree that even after this deal, a very big part of energy would still come from coal and gas powered generation plants. The nuclear generated energy would constitute only about 10-15 per cent of the total energy produced. The projected energy generation by nuclear means for the year 2000 was 43,500MW, however, the actual generation was mere 2,700MW. These projections were made about 40 years ago (at the start of India’s nuclear program) when there was not even a scope of any nuclear deal with any country, let alone the US & the NSG counties.
But there is more to the deal than the energy aspect. USA has declared Pakistan as its major non-NATO ally. But Pakistan is not and can never be a natural ally to the US. As far as America’s interests in the region are concerned, it needs to strengthen India against any potential (and seemingly inevitable) aggression from its neighbours. A stronger India would be great for the Americans, who have a suspicious impression of the Chinese.
As far as nuclear tests are concerned, 123 Agreement (N-deal) clearly states that India can conduct nuclear test(s) in only certain ‘special circumstances’, which makes the tests explainable to the US and NSG. Any rise of those ‘special circumstances’ would make the case special for the Americans as well. It seems pretty clear that India would conduct tests only if it finds any danger from Pakistan and/or China. In such case USA would take care of its vested interests in the region and would try to mobilize support for India, its natural ally.
India has enough domestic nuclear fuel supplies to produces warheads so there shouldn’t be any crisis there. According to the deal India would hold the right to designate the future nuclear plants as civilian or military. Since already has some of its plants under the IAEA norms, there won’t be much problem in this area.
The Left parties are concerned that by signing this deal India’s foreign policy would be significantly affected and this is a valid argument. Many in the US Congress have questioned India’s intentions regarding its trade relations with Iran. USA would certainly pressurize India to rethink its relations with Iran. A pipeline from Iran through Pakistan is neither safe nor economically viable and India should look for other sources to quench its thirst for energy. India should follow China in this aspect. India too can follow China and opt for resource-rich Africa, which is a far safer option than Iran. The treaty would also be a strategic boost to India’s quest for the UNSC seat.
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=126066
Maya's shut order on Reliance irks farmers, industry
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=4bc7ff21-de10-4adb-a7e5-9fcc4277c425&&Headline=Maya's+order+on+Reliance+irks+farmers
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's diktat to shut Reliance Fresh operations in the state has irked both farmers and industry in the state and some are holding protests to demand their reopening.
Contrary to her claim that she was constrained to shut Reliance retail stores because of opposition from a large chunk of the farming community, representatives of farmers as well as industry have expressed their chagrin over the move.
They were also critical of the government's decision to roll back its own Agriculture Infrastructure and Investment Policy, whereby doors were opened for contract farming in the state.
Interestingly, some farmer groups have described Mayawati's abrupt move as "anti-farmer" taken under pressure after her political adversary, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, raised the issue and his party men resorted to protests outside Reliance stores.
About 5,000-odd farmers who were lined up by Reliance Fresh for supplying vegetables are planning to stage demonstrations and protest road-blocks to demand reversal of the state government decision.
In Nawabganj town of the Unnao district, about 45 kms from Lucknow, a farmer group staged a demonstration outside a Reliance Collection Centre on Saturday, while a major protest has been proposed in Lucknow on Tuesday.
"We will block the Lucknow-Kanpur highway if our demand to reopen Reliance stores is not met," Kanhaiya Lal, a farmer from Makdoompur village in Nawabganj, told IANS.
Another farmer Atul Bihari Verma complained: "Mayawati's new farm policy had given us the freedom to sell our produce to anyone, as against the earlier binding of selling the stuff only at mandis (wholesale markets) where middlemen were fleecing us. Now it is back to square one."
Ram Kumar of Veeramour village, about 20 kms from Lucknow, told IANS: "Do you know that Reliance had even facilitated collection of our produce from our doorstep, and the company was even bearing the 2 per cent mandi tax and 0.5 per cent education cess."
No chemical hub, asserts Mamata
Two days after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sought a political consensus on a chemical hub, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Friday threw a challenge to the government.
“There will be no chemical hub. State-sponsored terrorism and violence continue in Nandigram,” she asserted. Earlier in the day, one person was killed in violence in the Ranichak area of Nandigram. The government earlier planned to set up the hub in Nandigram but abandoned the move in the face of protests by a section of local people belonging to the Trinamool Congress-backed Bhoomi Ucched Pratirdoh Committee.
Protest continues
Though the government has decided to seek an alternative site, the trouble at Nandigram continues, with the committee continuing its protest movement.
Bandh disrupts life in Nandigram, situation tense
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Shops were closed and vehicles stayed off the roads in Nandigram block II, which was tense due to a 12-hour bandh called by a Trinamool Congress-backed group to protest the death of a member during a gun battle with CPI-M members. All shops, barring medicine stores and tea stalls, downed their shutters in Nandigram bazar, Sonachura, Satengabari and Mahespur localities while buses did not ply in the area, police said.No classes were held in educational institutions, while banks did not function, they said.
The bandh was called by the Bhoomi Uchched Pratirodh Committee, which has been opposing the acquisition of farm land for industry in the area.
Police were deployed near the CPI-M office in Nandigram bazar, as a BUPC procession, led by Trinamool MLA Shubhendu Adhikari, went around the block.
Personnel of the Rapid Action Force, already deployed at Talpatti bridge, kept vigil as CPI-M workers took out the procession in nearby Khejuri, where shops remained open though the situation was tense.
Senior Trinamool leader Partha Chatterjee demanded a probe into allegations that CPI-M activists snatched weapons from police during yesterday's gun battle.BUPC member Madhab Mandal was killed and another member of the body was injured in firing by CPI-M activists at Ranichak village in Nandigram block yesterday.BUPC supporters too fired but no casualties were reported among the CPI-M.
Maoist attack
Suspected Maoists on Saturday attacked the party office of Communist Party of India-Marxists (CPI-M) in West Bengal's Nadia district, razing the building to ground, police said.The incident took place at Poragachia under Kotwali police station area in Krishnanagar, about 125 km from Kolkata.The Maoists torched the furniture and important party documents at the office and also left behind some of their posters and leaflets, the police said.
On August 8 two rifles were reportedly snatched from police personnel in Krishnanagar by Maoists, and soon after posters - urging people to join hands in Nandigram and Singur's anti-land acquisition movement - were also recovered from the same area.
Higher Stakes
The stakes are inordinately higher with the nuclear accord. Singh's personal credibility, his government's viability and New Delhi's improving relations with Washington are all, to some degree, on the line.While an uneasy calm and fear prevailed in Hyderabad on Sunday morning, a day after twin blasts rocked the city killing 45 people and injuring several others. The blasts have left people with a sense of fear, and resentment against the government. Meanwhile, President Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have condemned the blasts.A day after twin blasts ripped through Hyderabad, initial investigations suggest the involvement of terrorist organisations based in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The Andhra government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs five lakh for the families of victims.While Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy confirmed the involvement of cross-border terror organisations, the Centre doesn’t seem convinced enough.
Starvation and calamities strikes the rural masses in India as Eighty people have died of cholera and several thousands affected by the disease in three tribal-dominated districts of Rayagada, Koraput and Kalahandi in southern Orissa. At least 70 people have died and another 1,500 people are suffering from cholera in the state of Orissa, officials said on Sunday. The water-borne disease broke out in the poor districts of Rayagada and Koraput, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) southwest of the state capital Bhubaneswar, officials said.
"An outbreak of cholera over the past week has claimed 50 lives and close to 1,000 people are being treated," the chief medical officer in Rayagada district, P. Sitaram, said. Sitaram said the cause of the outbreak was linked to stagnant pools used for drinking water and contaminated meat.
In Koraput, another 20 people have died in the past week and 500 more are ill, district administrator Balakrushna Sahoo said in a phone interview.
So it was with some surprise last week that Indians caught a glimpse of what seemed like a different man, a normally mild-mannered, Oxford-educated technocrat suddenly in touch with his inner pugilist. Trying to salvage a landmark nuclear cooperation deal between India and the United States, Singh came out swinging.As the government continues to face opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal on the domestic front, France has hailed the agreement as being a result of "very careful, cautious and intelligent" negotiations and vowed to support it at IAEA and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Refusing to be drawn into the controversy over the issue, France believes Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has "very good set of arguments" to push the agreement. Top Left leaders met on Saturday with CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat briefing his CPI counterpart A B Bardhan on the recent Central Committee meeting on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.The leaders are understood to have also discussed the response they have received so far from the Manmohan Singh government as well as the Congress party. The meeting comes a day after CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and briefed him on the Central Committee resolution, which endorsed the Politburo's stand on the nuclear issue.The Core Committee of the Congress also discussed the matter on Friday night after UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi returned from her South Africa tour.
The Central Committee had categorically stated that while it did not want the "current crisis" over the deal to affect the UPA government, the responsibility of it lay squarely on the ruling coalition.
In a message, Patil said that such acts must be strongly condemned as they are aimed at disturbing harmony and peace. Those involved in such actions have no respect for innocent human lives, she said. She appealed to the people to help the state and the local authorities in maintaining peace and accord.
Patil also conveyed her condolences to the next of kin of those who have lost their lives and has also wished an early recovery of the injured.
Saturday's blasts came three months after 16 people were killed in a bombing at the Mecca Masjid in the city. Yesterday, the first explosion took place at Lumbini Park at around 7.40 p.m., which was a high-intensity one.Around eight hundred people were present to witness a laser and a fountain show when the blast took place at the park, which is situated very close to the State Secretariat. The next went off about half an hour later at a popular eatery joint, Gokul Chat Bhandar at Sultan Bazar, which remains overcrowded on weekend.
Police also recovered two unexploded bombs from a cinema hall in the busy Dilsukhnagar area and another from Narayanaguda. A bomb threat was received by an IMAX hall near Lumbini Park.
The attacks were suspected to have been planned and executed by Bangladesh-based terror group Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (Huji). According to Intelligence agency sources, the attacks could be the handiwork of Shahid Ilyas Bilal, who was also linked to the Mecca Masjid attacks. Bilal is a high-ranking Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative who has lately been working with Huji.
Yechury's meeting with the Prime Minister before the meeting of the Congress Core Group of the Congress is understood to have discussed ways to ease the standoff between the Left and the UPA over the nuclear deal.
According to CPI-M sources, Singh told Yechury that he would get back to the party on the issue.
After the Central Committee meeting, Karat had told a press conference "Unfortunately we are again trying to allay any apprehension that we are interested in this government going. We don't want this crisis to affect the government, but it is dependent on how the government acts."
French Ambassador Dominique Girard said it was for the Indian polity to decide on whether to go ahead with seeking civil nuclear cooperation with the international community and "that is no business of ours".
"I think Manmohan Singh's government and the Prime Minister himself have a very good set of arguments that they have led the negotiations with the Americans in a very careful, cautious and intelligent way," he said.
He was responding when asked about the controversy over the Indo-US deal, with the government's Left allies and opposition NDA rejecting the agreement and demanding a freeze on it.
"Our view is that India has the right and the legitimacy in getting access to civilian nuclear technology given its background, given it behaviour and its attitude," said the envoy, who left for home on completion of his term here.
Girard, whose country is keen to have civil nuclear cooperation with India, said France welcomes the Indo-US deal because "it is very much the product of the kind of thinking we had introduced" between India and its partners.
Dr Manmohan singh insisted that the deal was the right way forward. He waved aside objections from opponents on the left and the right like so much chaff. And, in a much-talked-about interview with the weekly newsmagazine India Today, he even accused his political enemies of praying for his death.
"Talking tough," the magazine declared on its cover, below a photo of the 74-year-old Singh with his finger raised, as if wagging it at those who would disagree.
In part because of his new assertiveness, Singh's government is facing its most serious crisis since coming to power three years ago.
The leader of a group of communist parties has warned Singh of "serious consequences" if he pushes ahead with the nuclear agreement. The deal would allow American companies to sell technology to India, which in exchange would open up its civilian reactors to international inspectors. Critics say the accord would make New Delhi too cozy with Washington.
The pact does not require approval from India's Parliament. But if leftist lawmakers withdraw their support, they could force early elections. Whether the malcontents will go that far is hard to tell. Virtually no one, politicians or voters, relishes the idea of elections ahead of their expected cycle in 2009.
But as officials toil behind the scenes to reach a compromise, the communists have promised to keep the pressure on by mounting public protests against the accord.
Singh expressed hope that the deal would sweep past its current political troubles. "If winter is here, can spring be far behind?" he said, slightly misquoting the poet Shelley.
A communist leader retorted that the prime minister could be in for "a long nuclear winter."
For now, many observers here are scratching their heads over Singh's sudden burst of combativeness, wondering what inspired such a change in a self-effacing leader who has, up to now, been more apt to seek a quiet consensus.
"The tone of his remarks is very out of character with his public life since 1991," the year Singh rose to national prominence as finance minister, said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan. "I can't think of another time when he was so outspoken on an issue."
Some speculate that Singh simply lost patience with opposition to the deal, which was first suggested by President Bush two years ago and has been the subject of headlines ever since. Others see Singh's tough stance as a shrewdly calculated move, a deliberate gambit to make the left blink on an issue in which public opinion appears to be in his favor. "There is a sense in which the P.M. is playing a strong hand," analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.
The question is whether it was Singh's decision to take the gloves off. From the start of his tenure, he has frequently been dismissed as a puppet of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party and India's most powerful woman.
After the face-off between Singh and the left escalated last week, Gandhi cut short a trip to South Africa and rushed back here, presumably to help craft a strategy to counter what may be stiffer opposition to the nuclear deal than the prime minister and his aides had anticipated.
Many Indians had expected the Italian-born Gandhi to become their leader after her party's victory at the polls in 2004.
But in tearful public remarks, the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi declined the post, possibly out of concern for her personal safety, and anointed Singh instead. By then, Singh had made his name as the architect of India's free-market reforms, the economic unfettering that has led to the nation's current boom.
Born under the British Raj in what is now Pakistan, Singh is India's 14th prime minister since independence in 1947 and the first Sikh to hold the office. By all accounts, he is highly intelligent, modest and, to the admiration of voters fed up with rampant corruption, honest and frugal.
What he isn't, some say, is a battle-hardened politician. Singh has never won a popular election. His membership in Parliament's upper chamber, the politically weaker Rajya Sabha, or Council of States, is a result of selection by the legislature of the small northeastern state of Assam.
Even friends were surprised when Gandhi tapped him for the premiership.
"I didn't believe it," Singh told an interviewer. "When I asked some friends of mine, they said, 'You are going to become the scapegoat. You're going to fail and maybe within six months you will be out.' "
Three years later, his shock at landing the job seems to have been replaced by a belief that he was born for it. "I have faith in a higher force. I believe it was my destiny to be the prime minister," he told India Today.
Yet by comparison with some of his opponents, said analyst Rangarajan, Singh is still a relative novice, which could be one explanation for his increasingly aggressive tone.
"One is that he's politically inexperienced. The other is that he is confident he'll come up trumps in this conflict," Rangarajan said. "I'm not yet convinced the second is going to happen. It's a big gamble."
One person who knows Singh says that he always evinced a determination to see something through.
Gautam Ganguly, a local official who worked with Singh during the mid-1990s on implementing a number of development schemes in Guwahati, Assam's capital, said he found the future prime minister to be "very humble, but at the same time non-compromising: no compromise on the quality of work, no compromise on any aspect."
Singh "was very firm, absolutely clear in his approach," Ganguly recalled in a telephone interview from southern Assam, where he is a district deputy commissioner. "And at the end of the day, he made a point to see that the schemes were completed."
Rights group accuses Bangladesh of abuses over curfew
http://in.reuters.com/article/SouthAsiaNews/idINIndia-29155520070826
A U.S.-based rights group accused Bangladesh of human rights abuses and urged authorities to abide by international standards as it enforces a curfew triggered by widespread student unrest.
"The demonstrations currently taking place in Bangladesh come after eight months of repressive emergency rule, which has restricted the rights to protest and to seek a legal remedy, and fails to respect basic due process rights," Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Saturday.
The interim administration took over in January with a promise to hold free and fair elections late next year. It imposed emergency measures to restore order after widespread violence led to the scrapping of elections in January.
A nationwide state of emergency has been in place ever since, allowing the administration curb political activity and launch an anti-graft campaign that has netted scores of senior figures.
"What sparked these protests is the ongoing repression of emergency rule, and the government's heavy-handed response is like oil on a fire," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
"While the protesters should remain peaceful and must exercise restraint to prevent loss to life and property, the government should immediately address some of their legitimate concerns instead of arbitrarily arresting people, beating detainees and fueling anger," she added in the statement.
The interim government dismissed the group's comments.
"We are doing everything constitutionally and legally. There is no question of human rights violations," the government's law and information adviser, Mainul Husein, told Reuters.
"Those who were alleged for violation of law have been produced before the court within 24 hours for legal decision. Let the HRW pin point where we are violating (human rights). If they can, we will rectify ourselves."
Dissent Threatens U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Deal
Delhi Parties Say Pact Limits Sovereignty
By Emily Wax and Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 26, 2007; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/25/AR2007082501192.html?hpid=topnews
NEW DELHI -- After two years of painstaking negotiations, a historic nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India appears to be unraveling as a broad spectrum of political parties calls on the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to scrap the deal, saying it limits the country's sovereignty in energy and foreign policy matters.
The landmark accord that just weeks ago looked like a major foreign policy triumph for this energy-starved subcontinent has become a political liability for India's fragile ruling coalition.
The brouhaha over the deal has surprised some nuclear analysts in Washington, partly because the Bush administration was widely perceived as having caved in to key Indian demands. The administration had assured the government here that it could receive uninterrupted nuclear supplies from the United States and maintain the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel -- a potentially dangerous prospect because reprocessing technology can also be used to make weapons-grade plutonium. To many Western observers, India already had the upper hand in the deal, a testament to its growing international influence.
"The Indian negotiators were as tough or tougher than anyone that the U.S. has encountered in recent years," said Philip D. Zelikow, former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a key player in the accord. "India won a great deal."
In return, the Bush administration firmed up a strategic alliance with a country that in many ways is expected to shape the future of Asia. India's nuclear program serves as a check on Pakistan's, as well as a counterbalance to China's nuclear prowess.
But in the latest twist of the saga, an alliance of Indian communist parties has called on Singh's government to scrap the deal. The parties say India's sovereignty was compromised by the agreement because it includes a condition that all but requires the government's cooperation in U.S. foreign policy matters.
Partly at issue for India is whether it can conduct further nuclear tests without violating the terms of its agreement with the United States. The right to do so is fiercely protected by politicians in India, whose lingering mistrust of Western powers dates back to British colonial rule.
"We have the right to test. They have the right to protest," the embattled Singh said when asked by Indian reporters what would happen if India tested another nuclear bomb, as it did in 1998.
All week, breaking news about the "government in crisis" has been splashed across the newspapers and broadcast on television, with anxious reports about the looming demise of the U.S.-India nuclear deal and, along with it, Singh's coalition government.
"The deal is frozen. It is stuck," a senior Indian government official said on condition of anonymity. "Now only a miracle can retrieve the deal."
The push for India to renege on the nuclear pact has vexed U.S. officials, who are facing their own domestic criticism for reaching an agreement with a country that has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nuclear experts say the Bush administration was too lenient with India.
In India, some analysts say India is already in a good position.
'Left and China can relax'
25 Aug 2007, 2350 hrs IST,Rajat Pandit,TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Left_and_China_can_relax/articleshow/2310833.cms
GWALIOR: China can afford to relax. India has no intention of militarily gan