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What qualifies someone as PM according to Jyoti Basu, the senior CPI-M leader?
Read his comments in 2004:
Basu told reporters he had no problem with Sonia becoming prime minister.
In my last post on this issue several months back, I had reproduced how much the American Nuclear supply companies stood to gain from this deal. Well, among others, our security analyst Raghavan (whom I had quoted in my last post) too got it wrong. The Nuclear Deal and the arms supply to India is seemingly poised for a major jump. Indeed the kind of investment seem to imply that we want to go for a war in the next decade or so.
Here are excerpts from a blog post from someone who maybe thinks all this is great news - Indians in the USA who stand to benefit from the deal through their careers/ companies. India is to become a major centre of weapons in the coming decade is the clear message. Much of the so called FDI that is being invested in India is to be utilized by the revenue being generated more efficiently by Chidambaram & Co., for buying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from a country that has been obsessed with that idea for a long time now.
Business and Indo-US deal
Power Plays: Business Implications of the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal
From: India Knowledge@Wharton Article , Aug 09, 2007 http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/india/article.cfm?articleid=4217
Two big U.S. delegations -- representing 180 companies and 38 companies respectively -- visited India in the past year, looking to sell items such as Westinghouse nuclear reactors, uranium from South Dakota and Lockheed Martin fighter jets.
...Still, political groups in both countries threaten to block the deal, even as the emerging geopolitical realities and the economic benefits appear to outweigh the concerns. India Knowledge@Wharton spoke to corporate executives, analysts and Wharton faculty members to understand the business ramifications of the deal.
Staying Below the Radar
Initially, it appeared that most of the debates about the U.S.-India nuclear agreement were largely political. A deafening silence marked the business implications -- and with good reason: Many senior executives were waiting for the political clouds to clear and for the final terms of the agreement to be revealed. As GE India's CEO T.P. Chopra told India Knowledge@Wharton in an interview, the final form of the agreement would affect GE's nuclear power strategy in the country. Some business leaders point to other challenges. "First, some hurdles still remain," says the CEO of an Indian company that has been negotiating with U.S. firms for defense joint ventures. "The last thing we want is to give ammunition to the Left-wing parties. They would love to project the U.S. as greedy capitalists selling the country for a few dollars more. Business will keep silent until it's all signed, sealed and delivered." (The Congress Party-led Indian government depends on support from the Left, which has rejected the deal.)
...
According to an ...News report, "Areva, the world's largest maker of nuclear power stations, and General Electric, are among four companies poised to share $14 billion of orders from India as nations led by the U.S. prepare to lift a 33-year ban. Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric and Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom will probably also win contracts to each build two 1,000 megawatt reactors, according to Nuclear Power Corp. of India chairman S.K. Jain." The report noted India can begin purchasing equipment following NSG approval of the agreement.
....(the report) added that "the orders will form the first phase of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plan to build 40,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020, equivalent to a third of current generation. India needs to add to the 3% of electricity that comes from Russian-designed reactors to meet soaring energy needs and reduce its reliance on coal-fired power plants." The report also quoted one source who said India would "try to diversify its suppliers and it's highly likely all four [Areva, GE, Westinghouse and Rosatom] will win the contracts."
...
For U.S. companies, multi-billion dollar opportunities are opening up. "It is not just in the nuclear area," says Shivanand Kanavi, a commentator on technology issues who is currently writing a book on India's nuclear program and is the author of Sand to Silicon, a book on the digital revolution. "There are opportunities at several levels and in several sectors."
One obvious opportunity is that U.S. companies will be allowed to sell both nuclear reactors and technology to India. This is big business -- roughly $150 billion worth, according to estimates from the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC). The numbers are extrapolated from the Indian nuclear industry's plans to increase nuclear power output from around 3,500 MW now to 60,000 MW over the next three decades. The Atomic Energy Commission has doubled its target for 2024 from 20,000 MW to 40,000 MW. Nuclear energy today accounts for barely 3% of India's total generation of 120,000 MW.
A clear beneficiary of the new regime is the public-sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) -- the entity negotiating the deals with Areva, GE, Westinghouse and Rosatom cited in the Bloomberg report.
...
Regulatory Bottlenecks
At the recent annual general meeting of Tata Power, the group's chairman, Ratan Tata, told shareholders: "If the government opens the sector for private investment, Tata Power would be certainly interested in operating a nuclear power plant." A critical challenge for businesses, however, will be securing the government's green light. Today, only companies with a 51% government stake are allowed to generate nuclear energy. In practice, this has boiled down to only NPCIL. Two years ago, the 89.5% government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had approached NPCIL with a proposal that it enter the nuclear generation arena. But the talks have not made much headway. (Incidentally, NTPC shares rose on the release of the text of the 123 Agreement; NPCIL is not listed.)
For the private sector to enter the fray, the regulatory environment will need to change. In May, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar told a meeting in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) that the Atomic Energy Act would be amended as soon as possible to allow private-sector participation. Draft legislation has already been circulated.
...Over the years that the Indian nuclear industry was shunned by the Western world, many of these companies have built up a good deal of expertise. HCC, for instance, was the first Indian construction company to undertake civil engineering works for pressurized heavy water reactor power projects in India. "HCC has constructed four out of the seven nuclear power plants in India," says chairman and managing director Ajit Gulabchand. Four new plants are under construction, with HCC building two of them.
"It is fast becoming accepted that nuclear energy is 'green' compared to conventional energy sources, and it is also quicker to implement," says Gulabchand. "There is a renewed global focus on building new capacities."
M.V. Kotwal, who heads the heavy engineering division of engineering giant L&T, now sees openings to set up "light water nuclear reactors of the boiling water type or the pressurized water type." He says the technology for such reactors, which need enriched uranium as fuel, is available with the U.S., France, Japan and Russia. Whereas L&T is equipped to manufacture the main reactor vessels as well as steam generators, pressurizers and other critical equipment for such nuclear power plants, "it is a problem at times to source some of the raw material which is manufactured by European, Japanese and Russian companies," says Kotwal. "After the clearance of the agreement, it will be easier to source such material and hence to speed up the Indian program."
...Meanwhile, the perestroika in the nuclear arena will extend to exploration. The public-sector Uranium Corporation of India will be bidding for mines abroad. Meanwhile, at home, the private sector is being allowed into uranium exploration. For starters, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will outsource areas like data collection and analysis.
All of this is, however, small change compared to defense deals, which have U.S. companies waiting anxiously. A conservative estimate says that India will spend $70 billion in defense procurement over the next five years. (The $150 billion estimated for nuclear power projects is spread over 28 years.)
Take just one component: fighter jets. India is in the market for 126 multi-role combat aircraft. At $10 billion, this is one of the world's biggest single-supplier contracts.
... Boeing's recent win of a $11 billion order for 68 aircraft from Air India, and its announcement that it would invest $1.7 billion to buy goods and services from Indian companies. Lockheed Martin has approached Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, BHEL, and the Tatas for joint defense projects, he adds.
Today, Russia is India's biggest defense supplier. Israel stands at No. 2, having overtaken France, the U.K. and the U.S., who had been hamstrung by various restrictions but now want part of the action. India this year expects to spend $10.5 billion on military equipment, including $4 billion for the air force, $2.8 billion for the army and $2.5 billion for the navy. Some 70% of those capital needs are met though imports....
"Ultimately, economics determines everything," says Chaudhuri, who feels those compulsions will override political opposition to the deal. To support that point, he says that despite widespread criticism of China's political system and its human rights issues, the U.S. business community is "very close to China."
source:http://reflections-shivanand.blogspot.com/2008/04/business-and-indo-us-deal.html
Bal Thackarey's people are best known outside of Maha as a group who are prone to dig holes in Mumbai (and at times other) cricket stadium everytime Pakistan comes to play India there. This, they must have considered a sacred duty on their part is now evident. What they achieved through these sacred acts is not known till date.
The great man has now said that a few girls in bikini dancing on the sidelines has brought down the sanctity of cricket!!! the clever BCCI must be in glee, now there are Pakistan players playing in India, in Indian local teams and what can the sacred people do? confused!! hahaha.
I think finally IPL has made cricket a proper Indian game. It is the celebration of India as the global dominator of the sport. I don't think any other cricket playing nation could have hosted such a crazy tournament (does anyone remember the old sleepy Ranji Trophy?). Certainly nowhere would you find such turn out of people day after day paying so much to watch so little (of course, I am alluding to the duration of a typical match, not the clothing of cheer leaders).
I should confess, I have watched more cricket in television in the last couple of weeks than what I would have watched in a few years before. And I am not watching this for cheerleaders.
I think the commercialization and glamourization of cricket will be the best contribution India has done to this sport. I foresee in the near future cricketers from across the globe going 'native' in different parts of India, players refuse playing for their home counties and countries and prefer to appear for IPL teams, I foresee Vijay Mallaya having more say in who should represent India in the near future and at some future date, cricket teams truely overcoming the sex barrier with both men and women playing in the same team, of course, what if the women were to adorn a different kind of attire. Our cricket minister (who also does some agricultural ministering on the side) could even hold a match in Vidharba as yet another of his innovative solution to farmer's woes there.
Gully cricket as it is played in most parts of India is 10 overs or 20 overs long, it is played between any two teams that could be patched up together on that day in the street, by the chap who owns the cricket gear and his opponent, the chap who owns more gets to pick up his team first, only a few regular players matter all others could be extras - the street vendors, roadside spectators, etc. the gully cricket is all about lusty hitting, there is no reverence to bowling, the gully cricket is often played for high stakes (within the capacity of those playing) and there are always quite a few fringe stake holders. Every one participates in some way. IPL T20 is the gully cricket in grand proportions, it appeals all the Indians, particular the younger very well. It is certainly not a puritan game, just like what gets spoken in India is no longer the British English, yet, completely valid as a langugage because it represents the personality of India better, same with the T20 - it is the Indian gully cricket.
Only cricket now resembles Indian weddings, there is dance (with all the gyration of the hips since the days of Govinda that happens in every wedding event today, the cheerleaders are no different), there is opulence, I am sure there is much food in the galleries too, every one has good time, oops...may be shortly if Mallaya has his way, he will even 'bring in the good times' into the stadium to complete the Indian wedding charecter, the winners are not predictable, but, that is irrelavent in this form of the game, it is not a game as IPL promoters repeatedly tell you, it is entertainment extreme, period.
The time for protest was not after the wedding party starts, but, before it was planned. If only Thackarey and all his people had more foresight, they would have stopped the commencement of 24x7 television channels in India rather than dig all those sacred holes at Whankhede stadium. Ultimately, T20 has come out of the direct result of missing content of mass appeal for the television channels and the need for more than one Indian team to satisfy the huge pressure of endorsements of often competitive products.
This morning, the latest Tehelka issue caught my eye, with the title, 'Climate Change - Sooner Than You Think', the lead article by Bittu Sehgal. I am yet to read the piece, but, just now the latest Down To Earth editorial landed in my Inbox and I immediately decided to share it with all. Ms. Sunita Narain's story of disappearing islands on the Sunderbans is shocking, but, not surprising.
While urban India is still celebrating 'Inconvenient Truth' on HBO or latest quotable quotes by Pachchuri, the most inconvenient truth is that remote parts of rural India are the biggest victims of the effects of global warming. Read the story below to get an example. Also, note the important point being made by her regarding the lack of research competence in our country to seriously understand this sensitive issue. It is not only in this area, but, in many other areas that we hardly have any competence, qualification or expertise.
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Editorial: Science drowns at land's end
My colleague Pradip Saha has been filming in Ghoramara, an island in the Sunderban delta, to understand why, in this zone suspended between land and water, people talk of nothing but subsidence. Savita’s narration captures the mood. Two years ago, rising water tore into this housewife’s life, taking away her land, source of livelihood and her dignity. She wasn’t compensated. She then moved further landward, paying a landowner to build another home. But now the water’s grasping at her tiny house again: she shows the camera deep gashes in the ground just outside. Every high tide, Savita stays awake, for the water might just pull her under. The land records at the local panchayat office tell it all: the island has shrunk to a handkerchief—from 13,800 ha to 4,290 ha in the last 20 years.
This is not unusual, or new. These are islands located in the river’s mouth as it flows into the Bay of Bengal. Erosion is natural and inevitable. Complete islands have disappeared. Sheikh Lalmohan takes the film crew to a vast stretch of water a little south of Ghoramara. From the boat he points to a corner; his home used to be there. Poignantly, he shows his farm, the school, the temple, a few relatives’ houses—all gone today. Lohachara island, where Lalmohan’s house used to be, went completely under water in the 1980s. Lalmohan now lives in a refugee colony in Sagar island.
Villagers here, well versed with the realities of living in a delta, are more worried today. They sense a change is on them. Till now, when the waters took over, they could move inland or to lands beyond. Now, even the biggest island in the Sunderbans—Sagar—is showing signs of weathering. It is losing land, so much that finding refuge is no longer easy. They can see the pace of erosion is increasing. They cannot measure it in metres; they cannot explain what is happening, but they know they can no longer cope or adapt. They build embankments; they reinforce their mud walls with bamboo barriers. But all is too little and all too late.
The point is to understand this change: is the sea level rising so that land is going under? Has the river’s ecology changed in a way that provokes more erosion? Is the land-sea balance out of kilter? Are all these happening and more?
Even as this reality show was being filmed, off the Bay of Bengal, I happened to be in Goa where the country’s premier oceanography institute is located. The dots needed to be joined. I wanted some answers.
The scientists I met are knowledgeable, but also open about the fact that we are beginning to learn about sea level rise trends along our coast. One way to measure the possible rise of sea level, they explain, is to study the tide gauge records that ports and maritime authorities maintain and analyse trends. Ideally, records of over 60 years are needed. In India, Mumbai port tide gauge data is for 100 years and the rest vary. When scientists A S Unnikrishnan and D Shankar put together all data above 40 years, they got these from 10 ports along the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea—from Aden in Yemen to Ko Taphao Noi in Thailand.
After correction for data inconsistency, they were left with five ports—Aden (where, interestingly, data goes back to the 19th century but ends in 1960), Karachi, Mumbai and Kochi in the Arabian Sea and Visakhapatnam in the Bay of Bengal.
They then plotted this data to look for trends. Firstly, they found there was huge variation in mean sea level—annual and decadal—across the north Indian Ocean. They believed this was primarily due to high intensity wind action as well as growing salinity in the water. Overall, the data revealed sea level rise trends close to the globally observed averages—between 1.06 mm/year to 1.75 mm/year with an average of 1.29 mm/year.
But these averages exclude data from Diamond Harbour in Kolkata and Sagar in Sunderbans because of inconsistency. Here, mean tidal gauge data shows massive changes—5.74 mm/year. Scientists ascribe this increase to the depression of the land around. They cite studies showing land subsidence rates—for tectonic and geological reasons, possibly combined with groundwater extraction—of up to 4 mm/year. In other words, it isn’t only the sea’s level going up but the land level going down.
These are unexplored questions, admits the institute’s director S R Shetye, a leading scientist in the field. The fact is that we have a serious and debilitating lack of human capacity to even understand these Earth changes. The problem, he explains, lies partly in how earth sciences and oceanography are taught. These old professions are the key to the future. But teaching remains out-dated and out of touch. Worse, he says, in India the pedagogy is not connected to the research questions of the day, let alone facilities enabling research. This disjoint has weakened the profession, making the country’s research poor. It needs urgent fixing.
In all this, what does Savita do? She cannot worry about whether the sea is rising or the land is subsiding. It is also clear that climate change is that double whammy (coming on top of all that is already happening) tipping her over. The end result is more erosion; her land will go under again. She has once lost her livelihood and there is no way to ‘adapt’, no way to survive but to move far, very far. Where will she go now?
Is this a glimpse of what the future holds, when the sea does rise at a higher rate, not just in the Sunderbans, but across the populated coasts and islands of the world?
—Sunita Narain
Read the editorial online >>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/cover_nl.asp?mode=1
What is wrong with Olympics and China?
The Chinese deciding to win a certificate from the world for their good conduct using Olympics seems to be the only problem. They have had a dream run so far, suddenly the Tibetan protests have thrown spanner in their PR works. Too many Tibetan sympathizers across the world is not because of any political propaganda of the Dalai Lama or the Tibetans as much as the total number of people who have benefited from the Tibetan leader's preaching of peace and love to the world. The Tibetans have repeatedly held their own, by sticking to non-violent means that are true to their faith and convictions.
I believe that today if anyone struggle across the world is represented by non-violence, it is that of Tibet. Perhaps there are random violent actions that are not not in sync with the overall movement itself, perhaps there is a large amount of support from many Western nations. But, how many western nations understand non-violent struggle and can participate in it is a question to be considered seriously.
We in India need to understand and sympathize with the Tibaten struggle. Our own bungling of the Kashmir issue is a weak justification for the Chinese position. We more than anyone else have the right to talk for Tibet as we have housed them and provided for a nursery to their culture so that at a future date it could be transplanted back to their nation. We understand their culture because we have accommodated and lived with them in peace for 50 years. Today we talk for the people of Tibet, China for the land that is Tibet. The people of Tibet are the holders of the culture, language, faith, arts, traditions that penetrate daily life in a million small ways. Yes, it has a lot to do with the land in which they live, once uprooted it could have been destroyed, we nurtured it so that it sustains its life and today flourish to benefit the world. But, the people, the culture are not fully home here, they belong to Tibet. They need to necessarily leave the transplanted location and we need to utilize every opportunity to articulate this.
But, the Indian government does not seem to realize its responsibility and right on the Tibetan issue. While Global leaders who did not have to manage a lakh Tibetans in their land come openly in support of their cause in the current opportunity when the global spotlight is on China, Indian government has pushed itself on the back-foot for reasons best known only to itself and its communist allies. Communists in India as an ideology is great and as a political formulation is the next best thing to seasonal circus that visits every town in this country. They perform during the season and are mostly part-time activists, part time critics and mostly global worshippers of the last strong communist bastion whether it be soviet union or cuba or venezuela or china, they don't care. They have nothing to proudly showcase as a 'pure communist' success in India itself, despite Kerala being in their hands 50% of its existence and W.Bengal for maybe 50 years(?).
Indian Government behaves as though China is its new Lord. The statements coming out of the Indian Government in recent times on the Tibetan issue gives its real interpretation of the 'look east' policy. Looking east does not mean submit to everything Chinese. But, that is what the government wants to do. Read the following statement from Suresh Kalmadi, the man most famous for re-enacting Dandi with Rajiv Gandhi in track suit and fancy shoes. He is our olympic committee chairman for too long.
"We consider it a matter of pride."
Kalmadi said Sachin Tendulkar, Anju Bobby George, Milkha Singh, P T Usha, Aslam Sher Khan, Zafar Iqbal, Gurbhajan Singh Randhawa and former athletes and sportspersons in action are taking part in the relay.
"About 50 sportspersons will take part. So it is going to be good. I have no doubt that the torch relay in India will be a grand success."
And in the meanwhile, the Chinese themselves are getting jittery with all the negative propaganda...this morning news of Mme. Clinton asking her President to not attend the inaugural programme at Beijing is an indication of the mood in the western world, the German Chencellor has already decided not to attend in protest and the French President has kept his decision suspended.
| A nervous China slams the door | |
| Wednesday, April 09, 2008 11:57 [IST] | |
Acountry that is preparing to host a spectacular Olympics in August should be throwing open doors, rolling out the red carpet, and lining up brass-bands for visitors from overseas, right? Well, China is doing exactly the opposite. Evidently unnerved by the uprising in Tibet, and the protests that have marred the relay of the Olympics torch, China has tightened visa procedures and imposed entry restrictions that, taken together, have the effect of slamming a door on visitors’ face ahead of the upcoming sporting spectacle. For over a week now, China has stopped issuing fresh multiple-entry visas and suspended the short-stay visa-on-arrival facility | |
Almost unaware of the all these developments, the International Olympic Committee seems to celebrate a symbol that as far as I know, no one knows the significance of (I certainly didn't find anyone talking of this symbol anywhere).
"I am saddened that such a beautiful symbol of the torch, which unites people of different religions, different ethnic origin, different political systems, cultures and languages, has been attacked," Rogge said of the disruptions.
Meanwhile, in Tibet it seems to be business as usual...read the following quote from the gentleman controlling Tibet.
Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region government, told a news conference in Beijing that anyone who tried to disrupt the torch's journey through Tibet would face heavy punishment.
"If someone dares to sabotage the torch relay in Tibet and its scaling of the Mount Everest, we will seriously punish him and will not be soft-handed," said Qiangba Puncog.
