My Scribles

The Prime Minister has repeatedly assured the Parliament and the people of the following: 1.. Full co-operation on civilian nuclear technology, which would include the complete fuel cycle. 2.. We are placing our facilities in perpetuity as reciprocally US is also guaranteeing fuel supply in perpetuity. In case the US defaults on its fuel supply agreement (as it did in Tarapur), it will ensure that other members of the NSG will take over its obligations. 3.. Will have the right to build strategic reserves 4.. Will not compromise India's strategic interest 5.. Any termination of the agreement will be only after at least a year long process of consultation. The Answers given by the US State Department to the House Foreign Affairs Committee makes it clear that on all these counts, contrary to what the PM and the UPA Government has said, the 123 Agreement contains provisions that are quite different. (1) Answers to Questions 4,5 and 6 makes clear that the US will not give India access...

- NDTV Opinion Poll - New Delhi, September 1, 2008: The protests against Tata's Nano project in West Bengal have continued for almost two years. An NDTV poll sought to determine what the common man thinks, now that the Tatas have threatened to pull out of Singur. A full 75 per cent of all those surveyed by NDTV in urban and rural Bengal and around Singur have said that the coming of the Tatas is 'good for the state'. The results of the survey come at a time when work at the factory has been halted because of protests led by Mamata Banerjee. The Trinamool Congress leader refuses to relent on her demand that 400 acres of the almost 1000 acres acquired for the project be returned to farmers. As many as 63 per cent of the people surveyed by NDTV & Gfk-MODE said Mamata should agree to a compromise. Two-thirds of those surveyed also believe that the Tata group should stay back. Interestingly, while an overall 68 per cent believe that the Singur area will be better off with th...

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns the inhuman attack ona church-run children's orphanage at Phutpali in Orissa by sanghparivar criminals in which a young woman student who was looking afterthe children was burnt alive. It is a reflection of the fascisticmindset of these organizations that they could attack a place housinginnocent unprotected children. In other incidents of violenceunleashed by front organizations of the RSS, another member of theChristian community was burnt alive while houses and places of worshipacross Orissa are being attacked. Several have been injured. The humantargets mainly belong to poor tribals and scheduled caste Christiancommunities living in the most deprived regions of the state. All thisis supposedly in retaliation to the killing of VHP leader SwamiLaxmananda and four of his supporters reportedly by Maoists. While thekilling is condemnable and action must be taken to identify andpunish those responsible, it is shocking that the sangh p...

The serious situation in Jammu & Kashmir has been compounded by the tragic loss of lives in police firing. The urgent need of the hour is to suspend the agitation in both Jammu and the Kashmir valley and to resolve the issues through discussion and dialogue. The CPI(M) calls on all concerned parties to desist from taking steps which are affecting the age old harmony between the two communities and regions of the state. The CPI(M) also calls for urgent steps by the Central Government to ensure that the national highway is not blocked by agitators. The offer made to compensate the losses suffered by fruit growers by the Government should be immediately implemented.

The UPA Government has refused to submit the draft text of the IAEA Safeguards Agreement to the UPA-Left committee. As the experience of the 123 agreement has shown, the claims of the Government made prior to the negotiations are not borne out by the actual text. Thus the full text of the agreement is necessary to clarify the major issues involved.The first major issue relates to the possibility of the US terminating civilian nuclear cooperation with India for any reason in the future. India already had such an experience, when the US suspended nuclear fuel supplies to the Tarapur Atomic Power Station in 1983, reneging upon a thirty year contract signed in 1963. In the present case, the IAEA safeguards would continue even in such a scenario, since they are applicable in perpetuity to the entire civilian nuclear energy sector. The text of the 123 agreement has very ambiguous references to India taking "corrective measures" if nuclear fuel supplies from abroad are discontinued....

The Left parties have issued the following statement: On Withdrawal of Support to the UPA GovernmentThe Left Parties have withdrawn support to the UPA Government. The UPA Government came into existence in 2004 with the support of the Left parties on the basis of its Common Minimum Programme. The aim was to fight the communal forces and undo the damage they had done to the secular polity of India in their years in office. This required a set of interlinked policies to bring relief to the people, to protect India's integrity and to pursue an independent foreign policy. By going ahead with the deal at a time when there is the crushing burden of price-rise and galloping inflation, the Manmohan Singh Government has clearly shown that it is more concerned about fulfilling its commitment to the Bush administration rather than meeting its commitment to the people of India.The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is against India's vital interests. The Congress-led government has embraced a strategic ...