[vinnomot] Fwd: Save Bangladesh

- To: undisclosed-recipients:; Sent: Friday, July 4, 2008 10:33:01 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Save Bangladesh Bangladesh is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century - A special report by Johann Hari Bangladesh, the most crowded nation on earth, is set to disappear under the waves by the end of this century - and we will be to blame. Johann Hari took a journey to see for himself how western profligacy and indifference have sealed the fate of 150 million peoplewent to see for himself the spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which so many millions depend Friday, 20 June 2008 This spring, I took a month-long road trip across a country that we - you, me and everyone we know - are killing. One day, not long into my journey, I travelled over tiny ridges and groaning bridges on the back of a motorbike to reach the remote village of Munshigonj. The surviving villagers - gaunt, creased people - were sitting by a stagnant pond. They told me, slowly, what we have done to them. Ten years ago, the village began to die. First, many of the trees turned a strange brownish-yellow colour and rotted. Then the rice paddies stopped growing and festered in the water. Then the fish floated to the surface of the rivers, gasping. Then many of the animals began to die. Then many of the children began to die. The waters flowing through Munshigonj - which had once been sweet and clear and teeming with life - had turned salty and dead. Arita Rani, a 25-year-old, sat looking at the salt water, swaddled in a blue sari and her grief. "We couldn't drink the water from the river, because it was suddenly full of salt and made us sick," she said. "So I had to give my children water from this pond. I knew it was a bad idea. People wash in this pond. It's dirty. So we all got dysentery." She keeps staring at its surface. "I have had it for 10 years now. You feel weak all the time, and you have terrible stomach pains. You need to run to the toilet 10 times a day. My boy Shupria was seven and he had this for his whole life. He was so weak, and kept getting coughs and fevers. And then one morning..." Her mother interrupted the trailing silence. "He died," she said. Now Arita's surviving three-year-old, Ashik, is sick, too. He is sprawled on his back on the floor. He keeps collapsing; his eyes are watery and distant. His distended stomach feels like a balloon pumped full of water. "Why did this happen?" Arita asked. It is happening because of us. Every flight, every hamburger, every coal power plant, ends here, with this. Bangladesh is a flat, low-lying land made of silt, squeezed in between the melting mountains of the Himalayas and the rising seas of the Bay of Bengal. As the world warms, the sea is swelling - and wiping Bangladesh off the map. Deep below the ground of Munshigonj and thousands of villages like it, salt water is swelling up. It is this process - called "saline inundation" - that killed their trees and their fields and contaminated their drinking water. Some farmers have shifted from growing rice to farming shrimp - but that employs less than a quarter of the people, and it makes them dependent on a fickle export market. The scientific evidence shows that unless we change now, this salt water will keep rising and rising, until everything here is ocean. I decided to embark on this trip when, sitting in my air-conditioned flat in London, I noticed a strange and seemingly impossible detail in a scientific report. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - whose predictions have consistently turned out to be underestimates - said that Bangladesh is on course to lose 17 per cent of its land and 30 per cent of its food production by 2050. For America, this would be equivalent to California and New York State drowning, and the entire mid-West turning salty and barren. Surely this couldn't be right? How could more than 20 million Bangladeshis be turned into refugees so suddenly and so silently? I dug deeper, hoping it would be disproved - and found that many climatologists think the IPCC is way too optimistic about Bangladesh. I turned to Professor James Hansen, the director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, whose climate calculations have proved to be more accurate than anybody else's. He believes the melting of the Greenland ice cap being picked up by his satellites today, now, suggests we are facing a 25-metre rise in sea levels this century - which would drown Bangladesh entirely. When I heard this, I knew I had to go, and see. 1. The edge of a cliff The first thing that happens when you arrive in Dhaka is that you stop. And wait. And wait. And all you see around you are cars, and all you hear is screaming. Bangladesh's capital is in permanent shrieking gridlock, with miles of rickshaws and mobile heaps of rust. The traffic advances by inches and by howling. Each driver screams himself hoarse announc-ing - that was my lane! Stay there! Stop moving! Go back! Go forward! It is a good-natured shrieking: everybody knows that this is what you do in Dhaka. If you are lucky, you enter a slipstream of traffic that moves for a minute - until the jams back up and the screaming begins once more. Around you, this megalopolis of 20 million people seems to be screaming itself conscious. People burn rubbish by the roadside, or loll in the rivers. Children with skin deformities that look like infected burns try to thrust maps or sweets into your hand. Rickshaw drivers with thighs of steel pedal furious-ly as whole families cling on and offer their own high-volume traffic commentary to the groaning driver, and the groaning city. I wanted to wade through all this chaos to find Bangladesh's climate scientists, who are toiling in the crannies of the city to figure out what - if anything - can be saved. Dr Atiq Rahman's office in downtown Dhaka is a nest of scientific reports and books that, at every question, he dives into to reel off figures. He is a tidy, grey-moustached man who speaks English very fast, as if he is running out of time. "It is clear from all the data we are gathering here in Bangladesh that the IPCC predictions were much too conservative," he said. He should know: he is one of the IPCC's leading members, and the UN has given him an award for his unusually prescient predictions. His work is used as one of the standard textbooks across the world, including at Oxford and Harvard. "We are facing a catastrophe in this country. We are talking about an absolutely massive displacement of human beings." He handed me shafts of scientific studies as he explained: "This is the ground zero of global warming." He listed the effects. The seas are rising, so land is being claimed from the outside. (The largest island in the country, Bhola, has lost half its land in the past decade.) The rivers are super-charged, becoming wider and wider, so land is being claimed from within. (Erosion is up by 40 per cent). Cyclones are becoming more intense and more violent (2007 was the worst year on record for intense hurricanes here). And salt water is rendering the land barren. (The rate of saline inundation has trebled in the past 20 years.) "There is no question," Dr Rahman said, "that this is being caused primarily by human action. This is way outside natural variation. If you really want people in the West to understand the effect they are having here, it's simple. From now on, we need to have a system where for every 10,000 tons of carbon you emit, you have to take a Bangladeshi family to live with you. It is your responsibility." In the past, he has called it "climatic genocide". The worst-case scenario, Dr Rahman said, is if one of the world's land-based ice-sheets breaks up. "Then we lose 70 to 80 per cent of our land, including Dhaka. It's a different world, and we're not on it. The evidence from Jim Hansen shows this is becoming more likely - and it can happen quickly and irreversibly. My best understanding of the evidence is that this will probably happen towards the end of the lifetime of babies born today." I walked out in the ceaseless churning noise of Dhaka. Everywhere I looked, people were building and making and living: my eyes skimmed up higher and higher and find more and more activity. A team of workers were building a house; behind and above them, children were sewing mattresses on a roof; behind and above them, more men were building taller buildings. This is the most cramped country on earth: 150 million people living in an area the size of Iowa. Could all this life really be continuing on the crumbling edge of a cliff? 2. 'It is like the Bay is angry' I was hurtling through the darkness at 120mph with my new driver, Shambrat. He was red-eyed from chewing pan, a leaf-stimulant that makes you buzz, and I could see nothing except the tiny pools of light cast by the car. They showed we were on narrow roads, darting between rice paddies and emptied shack-towns, in the midnight silence. I kept trying to put on my seatbelt, but every time Shambrat would cry, "You no need seatbelt! I good driver!" and burst into hysterical giggles. To see if the seas were really rising, I had circled a random low-lying island on the map called Moheshkhali and asked Shambrat to get me there. It turned out the only route was to go to Coxs Bazar - Bangladesh's Blackpool - and then take a small wooden rowing boat that has a huge chugging engine attached to the front. I clambered in alongside three old men, a small herd of goats, and some chickens. The boat was operated by a 10-year-old child, whose job is to point the boat in the right direction, start the engine, and then begin using a small jug to frantically scoop out the water that starts to leak in. After an hour of the deafening ack-ack of the engine, we arrived at the muddy coast of Moheshkhali. There was a makeshift wooden pier, where men were waiting with large sacks of salt. As we climbed up on to the fragile boards, people helped the old men lift up the animals. There were men mooching around the pier, waiting for a delivery. They looked bemused by my arrival. I asked them if the sea levels were rising here. Rezaul Karim Chowdry, a 34-year-old who looked like he is in his fifties, said plainly: "Of course. In the past 30 years, two-thirds of this island has gone under the water. I had to abandon my house. The land has gone into the sea." Immediately all the other men start to recount their stories. They have lost their houses, their land, and family members to the advance. They agreed to show me their vanishing island. We clambered into a tuc-tuc - a motorbike with a carriage on the back - and set off across the island, riding along narrow ridges between cordoned-off areas of sand and salt. The men explained that this is salt-farming: the salt left behind by the tide is gathered and sold. "It is one of the last forms of farming that we can still do here," Rezaul said. As we passed through the forest, he told me to be careful: "Since we started to lose all our land, gangs are fighting for the territory that is left. They are very violent. A woman was shot in the crossfire yesterday. They will not like an outsider appearing from nowhere." We pulled up outside a vast concrete structure on stilts. This, the men explained, is the cyclone shelter built by the Japanese years ago. We climbed to the top, and looked out towards the ocean. "Do you see the top of a tree, sticking out there?" Rezaul said, pointing into the far distance. I couldn't see anything, but then, eventually, I spotted a tiny jutting brown-green tip. "That is where my house was." When did you leave it? "In 2002. The ocean is coming very fast now. We think all this" - he waved his hand back over the island - "will be gone in 15 years." Outside the rusty house next door, an ancient-looking man with a long grey beard was sitting cross-legged. I approached him, and he rose slowly. His name was Abdul Zabar; he didn't know his age, but guessed he is 80. "I was born here," he said. "There" - and he points out to the sea. "The island began to be swallowed in the 1960s, and it started going really quickly in 1991. I have lost my land, so I can't grow anything... I only live because one of my sons got a job in Saudi Arabia and sends money back to us. I am very frightened, but what can I do? I can only trust in God." The sea stops just in front of his home. What will you do, I asked, if it comes closer? "We will have nowhere to go to." I was taken to the island's dam. It is a long stretch of hardened clay and concrete and mud. "This used to be enough," a man called Abul Kashin said, "but then the sea got so high that it came over the dam." They have tried to pile lumps of concrete on top, but they are simply washed away. "My family have left the island," he continued, "They were so sad to go. This is my homeland. If we had to leave here to go to some other place, it would be the worst day of my life." Twenty years ago, there were 30,000 people on this island. There are 18,000 now - and most think they will be the last inhabitants. On the beach, there were large wooden fishing boats lying unused. Abu Bashir, a lined, thin 28-year-old, pointed to his boat and said, "Fishing is almost impossible now. The waves are much bigger than they used to be. It used to be fine to go out in a normal [hand-rowed] boat. That is how my father and my grandfather and my ancestors lived. "Now that is impossible. You need a [motor-driven] boat, and even that is thrown about by the waves so much. It's like the bay is angry." The other fishermen burst in. "When there is a cyclone warning, we cannot go out fishing for 10 days. That is a lot of business lost. There used to be two or three warnings a year. Last year, there were 12. The sea is so violent. We are going hungry." Yet the islanders insisted on offering me a feast of rice and fish and eggs. I was ushered into the council leader's house - a rusty shack near the sea - and the men sat around, urging me to tell the world what is happening. "If people know what is happening to us, they will help," they said. The women remained in the back room; when I glimpsed them and tried to thank them for the food, they giggled and vanished. I asked if the men had heard of global warming, and they looked puzzled. "No," they said. We stared out at the ocean and ate, as the sun slowly set on the island. 3. No hiding place Through the morning mist, I peered out of the car window at the cratered landscape. Trees jutted out at surreal angles from the ground. One lay upside down with its roots sticking upwards towards the sky, looking like a sketch for a Dali painting. Shambrat had spat out his pan and was driving slowly now. "There are holes in the ground," he said, squinting with concentration. "From the cyclone. You fall in..." He made a splattering sound. It was here, in the south of Bangladesh, that on 15 November last year, Cyclone Sidr arrived. It formed in the warmed Bay of Bengal and ripped across the land, taking more than 3,000 people with it. Like Americans talking about 9/11, everybody in Bangladesh knows where they were when Sidr struck. For miles, the upturned and smashed-out houses are intermixed with tents made from blue plastic sheeting. These stretches of plastic were handed out by the charities in the weeks after Sidr, and many families are still living in them now. There have always been cyclones in Bangladesh, and there always will be - but global warming is making them much more violent. Back in Dhaka, the climatologist Ahsan Uddin Ahmed explained that cyclones use heat as a fuel: "The sea surface temperatures in the Bay of Bengal have been rising steadily for the past 40 years - and so, exactly as you would expect, the intensity of cyclones has risen too. They're up by 39 per cent on average." Again I circled a cyclone-struck island at random and headed for the dot. The hour-long journey on a wooden rowing boat from the mainland to Charkashem Island passed in a dense mist that made it feel like crossing the River Styx. The spectral outline of other boats could sometimes be glimpsed, before they disappeared suddenly. One moment an old woman and a goat appeared and stared at me, then they were gone. The island was a tiny dot of mud and lush, upturned greenery. It had no pier, so when the rowing boat bumped up against the sand I had to wade through the water. I looked out over the silent island, and saw some familiar blue sheeting in the distance. As I trudged towards it, I saw some gaunt teenagers half-heartedly kicking a deflated football. From the sheeting, a man and woman stared, astonished. "I was in my fields over there," Hanif Mridha said. "I saw the wind start, it was about eight at night, and I saw everything being blown around. I went and hid under an iron sheet, but that was blown away by the wind. The water came swelling up all of a sudden and was crashing all around me. I grabbed one of my children and ran to the forest" - he pointed to the cluster of trees at the heart of the island - "and climbed the tallest one I could reach. I went as high as I could but still the water kept rising and I thought - this is it, I'm going to drown. I'm dying, my children are dying, my wife is dying. I could see everything was under water and people were screaming everywhere. I held there for four hours with my son." When the water washed away and he came down, everything was gone: his house, his crops, his animals, his possessions. A few days later, an aid agency arrived with some rice and some plastic sheeting to sleep under. Nobody has come since. His wife, Begum Mridha, took over the story. Their children are terrified of the sea now, and have nightmares every night. They eat once a day, if they're lucky. "We are so hungry," she said. The new home they have built is made from twigs and the plastic sheet. Underneath it, they sleep with their eight children and Begum Mridha's mother. The children lay lethargically there, staring blankly into space over their distended bellies. Begum Mridha cooks on a lantern. They eat once a day - if that. "It's so cold at night we can't sleep," she said. "The children all have diarrhoea and they are losing weight. It will take us more than two years to save up and get back what we had." If cyclones hit this area more often, what would happen to you? Hanif looked down. He opened his mouth, but no words came. 4. Bangladesh's Noah In the middle of Bangladesh, in the middle of my road trip, I tracked down Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan. He was sitting under a parasol by the banks of a river, scribbling frenetically into his notebook. "The catastrophe in Bangladesh has begun," he said. "The warnings [by the IPCC] are unfolding much faster than anyone anticipated." Until a few years ago, Rezwan was an architect, designing buildings for rich people - "but I thought, is this what I want to do while my country drowns? Create buildings that will be under water soon anyway?" He considered dedicating his life to building schools and hospitals, "but then I realised they would be under water soon as well. I was hopeless. But then I thought of boats!" He has turned himself into Bangladesh's Noah, urging his people to move on to boats as the Great Flood comes. Rezwan built a charity - Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, which means self-reliance - that is building the only schools and hospitals and homes that can last now: ones that float. We clambered on to his first school-boat, which is moored in Singra. In this area there is no electricity, no sewage system, and no state. The residents live the short lives of pre-modern people. But now, suddenly, they have a fleet of these boats, stocked with medicines and lined with books on everything from Shakespeare to accountancy to climatology. Nestling between them, there are six internet terminals with broadband access. The boat began to float down the Curnai River, gathering scores of beaming kids as it went. Fatima Jahan, an unveiled 18-year-old girl dressed in bright red, arrived to go online. She was desperate to know the cricket scores. At every muddy village-stop, the boat inhaled more children, and I talked to the mothers who were beating their washing dry by the river. "I never went to school, and I never saw a doctor in my life. Now my children can do both!" a thin woman with a shimmering heart-shaped nose stud called Nurjahan Rupbhan told me. But when I asked about the changes in the climate, her forehead crumpled into long frown-lines. I thought back to what the scientists told me in Dhaka. Bangladesh is a country with 230 rivers running through it like veins. They irrigate the land and give it its incredible fertility - but now the rivers are becoming supercharged. More water is coming down from the melting Himalayan glaciers, and more salt water is pushing up from the rising oceans. These two forces meet here in the heart of Bangladesh and make the rivers churn up - eroding the river banks with amazing speed. The water is getting wider, leaving the people to survive on ever-more narrow strips of land. Nurjahan took me up to a crumbling river edge, where tree roots jutted out naked. "My house was here," she said. "It fell into the water. So now my house is here -" she motioned to a small clay hut behind us - "but now we realise this is going to fall in too. The river gets wider day by day." But even this, Nurjahan said, is not the worst problem. The annual floods have become far more extreme, too. "Until about 10 years ago, the floods came every year and the water would stay for 15 days, and it helped to wet the land. Now the water stays for four months. Four months! It is too long. That doesn't wet the fields, it destroys them. We cannot plan for anything." When the floods came last year, Nurjahan had no choice but to stay here. She lived with her children waist-deep in the cold brown water - for four months. "It was really hard to cook, or go to the toilet. We all got dysentery. It was miserable." Then she seemed to chastise herself. "But we survived! We are tough, don't you think?" We sat by the river-bank, our feet dangling down towards the river. I asked if she agrees with Rezwan that her only option soon will be to move on to a boat. He is launching the first models this summer: floating homes with trays of earth where families can grow food. "Yes," she said, "We will be boat-people." I clambered back on to one of the 42 school-boats in this area. Young children were in the front chanting the alphabet, and teenagers at the back were browsing through the books. I asked a 16-year-old boy called Mohammed Palosh Ali what he was reading about, and he said, "Global warming." I felt a small jolt. He was the first person to spontaneously raise global warming with me. Can you tell me what that is? "The climate is being changed by carbon dioxide," he said. "This is a gas that traps heat. So if there is more of it, then the ice in the north of the world melts and our seas rise here." I asked if he had seen this warming in his own life. "Of course! The floods in 1998 and 2002 were worse than anything in my grandfather's life. We couldn't get any drinking water, so the dirty water I drank made me very sick. The shit from the toilet pits had risen up and was floating in the water, but we still had to drink it. We put tablets in it but it was still disgusting. What else could we do?" Mohammed, do you know who is responsible for this global warming? He shakes his head. That answer lies a few pages further into the book. Soon he, and everybody else on this boat, will know it is me - and you. 5. The warming jihad What happens to a country's mind as it drowns? Professor Philip Jenkins of Pennsylvania State University believes he can glimpse the answer: "The connection between climate change and religious violence is not tenuous," he says. "In fact, there's a historical indicator of how it could unfold: the Little Ice Age." Between the ninth and 13th centuries, the northern hemisphere went through a natural phase of global warming. The harvests lasted longer - so there were more crops, and more leisure. Universities and the arts began to flower. But then in the late 13th century, the Little Ice Age struck. Crop production fell, and pack ice formed in the oceans, wrecking trade routes. People began to starve. "In this climate of death and horror, people cast about for scapegoats, even before the Black Death struck," he says. Tolerance withered with the climate shocks: the Church declared witchcraft a heresy; the Jews began to be expelled from Britain. There was, he says, "a very close correlation between the cooling and a region-wide heightening of violent intolerance." This time, there will be no need for imaginary scapegoats. The people responsible are on every TV screen, revving up their engines. Will jihadism swell with the rising seas? Bangladesh's religion seems to be low-key and local. In the countryside, Muslims - who make up 95 per cent of the nation - still worship Hindu saints and mix in a few Buddhist ideas, too. In the Arab world, people bring up God in almost every sentence. In Bangladesh, nobody does. But then, as we returned to Dhaka, I was having a casual conversation with Shambrat. He had been driving all night - at his insistence - and by this point he was wired after chewing fistfuls of pan, and singing along at the top of his voice to the Eighties power ballads. I mentioned Osama bin Laden in passing, and he said, "Bin Laden - great man! He fight for Islam!" Then, without looking at me, he went back to singing: "It must have been love, but it's over now...." I wondered how many Bangladeshis felt this way. The Chandni Chowk Bazaar - one of the city's main markets - was overcast the afternoon I decided to canvass opinions on Bin Laden. I approached a 24-year-old flower-seller called Mohammed Ashid, and as I inhaled the rich sweet scent of roses, he said: "I like him because he is a Muslim and I am a Muslim." Would you like Bin Laden to be in charge of Bangladesh? "Yes, of course," he said. And what would President Bin Laden do? "I have no idea," he shrugged. What would you want him to do? He furrowed his brow. "If Osama came to power he would make women cover up. Women are too free here." But what if women don't want to cover up? "They are Muslims. It's not up to them." A very smartly dressed man called Shadul Ahmed was strolling down the street to his office, where he is in charge of advertising. "I like him," he said. "Bin Laden works for the Muslims." He conceded 9/11 "was bad because many innocents died," but added: "Osama didn't do it. The Americans did it. They are guilty." As dozens of people paused from their shopping to talk, a pattern emerged: the men tend to like him, and the women don't. "I hate Bin Laden," one smartly dressed woman said, declining to give her name. "He is a fanatic. Bangladeshis do not like this." As the praise for Bin Laden was offered, I saw a boy go past on a rickshaw, stroking a girl's uncovered hair gently, sensuously. This is not the Arab world. The only unpleasant moment came when I approached three women selling cigarettes by the side of the road. They were in their early thirties, wearing white hijabs and puffing away. Akli Mouna said, "I like him. He is a faithful Muslim." She said "it would be very nice" if he was president of Bangladesh. Really? Would you be happy if you were forced to wear a burqa, and only rarely allowed out of your house? She jabbed a finger at my chest. "Yes! It would be fine if Osama was president and told us to wear the burqa." But Akli - you aren't wearing a burqa now. "It's good to wear the burqa!" she yelled. Her teeth, I saw, were brown and rotting. "We are only here because we are poor! We should be kept in the house!" I wanted to track down some Bangladeshi jihadis for myself, so I called the journalist Abu Sufian. He is a news reporter for BanglaVision, one of the main news channels, who made his name penetrating the thickets of the Islamist underground. He told me to meet him at the top of the BanglaVision skyscraper. As the city shrieked below us, he explained: "In the late 1980s, a group of mujahideen [holy warriors] who had been fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan came back to launch an Islamic revolution here in Bangladesh. They tried to mount an armed revolt in the north and kill the former Prime Minister. But it didn't come to much." Islamic fundamentalism is hobbled in Bangladesh, because it is still associated for most people with Paki-stan - the country Bangladesh fought a bloody war of independence to escape from. But Sufian says a new generation of Islamists is emerging with no memory of that war. "For example, I met a 21-year-old who had fought in Kashmir, whose father was a rickshaw driver. He said it was his holy duty to establish an Islamic state here through violence. Most were teenagers. All the jihadis I met hated democracy. They said it was the rule of man. According to them, only the rule of God is acceptable." He said it would be almost impossible to track them down - they are in prison or hiding - but my best bet was to head for the Al-Amin Jami mosque in the north-west of Dhaka. "They are fundamentalist Wahhabis, and very dangerous," he said. Yet when I arrived, just before 6pm prayers, it was a bright building in one of the nicer parts of town. Men in white caps and white robes were streaming in. An ice-cream stall sat outside. I approached a fiftysomething man in flowing robes and designer shoes. He glared at me. I explained I was a journalist, and ask if it would it be possible to look inside the mosque? "No. Under no circumstances. At all." OK. I asked a few polite questions about Islam, and then asked what he thought of Osama bin Laden. "Osama bin Laden?" he said. Yes. He scowled. "I have never heard of him." Never? "Never." I turned to the man standing, expectantly, next to him. "He has not heard of Osama bin Laden, either," he said. What about September 11 - you know, when the towers in New York fell? "I have never heard of this event, either." Some teenage boys were about to go in, so I approached them. Behind my back, I can sense the Gucci-man making gestures. "Uh... sorry... I don't think anything about Bin Laden," one of them said, awkwardly. I lingered as prayers took place inside, until a flow of men poured out so thick and fast that they couldn't be instructed not to speak. "Yes, we would like Osama to run Bangladesh, he is a good man," the first person told me. There were nods. "He fights for Islam!" shouted another. The crowd says this mosque - like most fundamentalist mosques on earth - is funded by Saudi Arabia, with the money you and I pay at the petrol pump. As I looked up at its green minaret jutting into the sky, it occurs to me that our oil purchases are simultaneously drowning Bangladesh, and paying for the victims to be fundamentalised. After half-an-hour of watching this conversation and fuming, the initially recalcitrant man strode forward. "Why do you want to know about Bin Laden? We are Muslims. You are Christian. We all believe in the same God!" he announced. Actually, I said, I am not a Christian. There was a hushed pause. "You are... a Jew?" he said. The crowd looked horrified; but then the man forced a rictus smile and announced: "We all believe in one God! We are all children of Abraham! We are cousins!" No, I said. I am an atheist. Everyone looked genuinely puzzled; they do not have a bromide for this occasion. "Well... then..." he paused, scrambling for a statement... "You must convert to Islam! Read the Koran! It is beautiful!" Ah - so can I come into the mosque after all? "No. Never." 6. The obituarist? In a small café in Dhaka, a cool breeze was blowing in through the window along with the endless traffic-screams. The 32-year-old novelist Tahmima Anam was inhaling the aroma of coffee and close to despair. She made her name by writing a tender novel - A Golden Age - about the birth of her country, Bangladesh. When the British finally withdrew from this subcontinent in 1948, the land they left behind was partitioned. Two chunks were carved out of India and declared to be a Muslim republic - East Pakistan and West Pakistan. But apart from their religion, they had very little in common. The gentle people of East Pakistan chafed under the dictatorial fundamentalism imposed from distant Islamabad. When they were ordered to start speaking Urdu, it was enough. Her novel tells how in 1971, they decided to declare independence and become Bangladesh. The Pakistanis fought back with staggering violence, but in the end Bangladesh was freed. Now Anam is realising that unless we change, fast, this fight will have been for the freedom of a drowning land - and her next novel may have to be its obituary. Anam came to Bangladesh late. Her Dhaka-born parents travelled the world, so she grew up in a slew of international schools, but she always dreamed of coming home. Her passion for this land, this place, this delta, aches through her work. About one of her characters, she wrote: "He had a love for all things Bengali: the swimming mud of the delta; the translucent, bony river fish; the shocking green palette of the paddy and the open, aching blue of the sky over flat land." "You can see what has started to happen," she says. The vision of the country drowning is becoming more real every day. Where could all these 150 million people go? India is already building a border fence to keep them out; I can't imagine the country's other neighbour - Burma - will offer much refuge. "We are the first to be affected, not the last," Anam says. "Everyone should take a good look at Bangladesh. This story will become your story. We are your future." It is, she says, our responsibility to stop this slow-mo drowning - and there is still time to save most of the country. "What could any Bangladeshi government do? We have virtually no carbon emissions to cut." They currently stand at 0.3 per cent of the world's - less than the island of Manhattan. "It's up to you." Anam is defiantly optimistic that this change can happen if enough of us work for it - but, like every scientist I spoke to, she knows that dealing with it simply by adaptation by Bangladeshis is impossible. The country has a military-approved dictatorship incapable of taking long-term decisions, and Dutch-style dams won't work anyway. "Any large-scale construction is very hard in this country, because it's all made of shifting silt. There's nothing to build on." So if we carry on as we are, Bangladesh will enter its endgame. "All the people who strain at this country's seams will drown with it," Anam says, "or be blown away to distant shores - casualties and refugees by the millions." The headstone would read, Bangladesh, 1971-2071: born in blood, died in water. _________________________________________________________________ Need to know now? Get instant answers with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_062008 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Messages released in this Listserver reflect solely the views of the authors. The Listserver is independently moderated by Dr. Badrul Haque and does not reflect the views of the members or Trustees of the Bangladeshi-American Foundation, Inc. (www.bafi.org). For information on Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN), visit www.BEN-Center.org or http://listserv.cc.emory.edu/archives/ben.htmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bafi/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bafi/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:bafi-digest@yahoogroups.com mailto:bafi-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: bafi-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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[vinnomot] Is khoka vasur of our controversial, susil editor Moti ?

If you read the lead news of todays susil bangladaily about  the condition of roads of dhak city, it will seems to you that our Khoka saheb is vasur of the susil,controversial editor  moti.   http://www.prothom-alo.com/index.news.details.php?nid=MTczMjA=    Other wise there must have any reference that khoka saheb is the mayor of dhaka city and he has  responsibility  regarding such  conditions of roads.    Why the susils protecting the people with two evil characters:opportunist and corrupt?    has khoka given part of his money to the reporter or the editor?  আল্লাহ যাকে যখন ইচ্ছা ক্ষমতা দান করেন,মাইনাস টু ফরমুলায় তাই হাসেন http://www.microscopiceye.blogspot.com/

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[vinnomot] My Next Poetry Reading/Tomorrow

Dear Friends,

 

I will read from my poetry as a feature poet tomorrow at the Vault in Queens Village, arranged by Asbestos Arts Group. Please find more information about it from the following excerpt. If you are in or around the city, please come join me and enjoy an evening with poetry. Thank you for your cooperation.

 

---Hassanal Abdullah

 

 

90-21 Springfield Blvd, Queens Village.

[F] to 179 Street, then Q43 to Hillside Ave & Springfield Blvd. Walk past 90^th Ave.

Robert Dunn, emcee. $5 adm, no min.

Thursday, July 10^th, 2008 @ 8 pm.

Hassanal Abdullah  + Open

 

 

 

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[vinnomot] Hindutva Deal: Marriage Ends, Copulation Continues

Hidnutva Deal: Marriage Ends, Copulation Continues

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 19

Palash Biswas

G-8 backs Indo-US civil nuclear deal

Toyako (Japan), Jul 9 (PTI) In a major breakthrough for the troubled
Indo-US nuclear deal, the powerful group of eight (G-8)
industrialised countries today decided to adopt a "more robust"
approach to civil nuclear cooperation with India to help meet its
growing energy needs.
"We look forward to working with India, the International Atomic
Energy Agency, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other partners to
advance India's non-proliferation commitments and progress so as to
facilitate a more robust approach to civil nuclear cooperation with
India to help it meet its growing energy needs in a manner that
enhances and reinforces the global non-proliferation regime," the
Chair's Summary released at the end of the G-8 summit said here.

The statement came hours after US President George W Bush met Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh here on the sidelines of the G-8 summit.

The G-8 is made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia and the United States. PTI

Indo-US nuclear deal gets `kiss of life'!With the Indo-US nuclear
deal getting a fresh lease of life, there is a renewed sense of hope
among those in the United States who support the deal.It is also a
life line for MNCs reigning Indian Economy and Recession clad US War
Economy.

It is like a case of individual trapped in tradition.

The Marriage ends, but Copulation continues!

It is more surprising that the Marxists plead Chinese leadership for
the third world countries but contrarily China supports the Indo US
deal ensuring a Global communist Betrayal! It is ironical that the
unexpected support from the Communist neighbour came on a day when
the government's Communist partners decided to withdraw support.!

On a day when its Left partners withdrew support, the Indian
government has received backing from unexpected quarters on the Indo-
US nuclear deal.

The Foreign Secretary said on Tuesday that China has expressed its
willingness to support the nuclear deal. The development came after
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Chinese President Hu Jintao earlier
this morning in Japan, where he is due to attend the G8 meeting.

China is believed to have expressed its willingness to help India in
getting the nuclear deal through the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers
Group.

The Indian government is planning to pursue several defence deals
with the United States and Israel following the Left parties'
withdrawal from the government. Sources within the government said
that various deals had not been completed with both these countries
due to the strong opposition presented by the Left parties. They said
that as soon as the news of the Left's withdrawal was made public,
Defence Minister AK Antony ordered several steps to ensure that the
pending defence deals with US companies were completed promptly.

Making a strong case before the business community for the
operationalisation of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Atomic Energy
Commission Chief Anil Kakodkar on Wednesday (July 9) said that Indian
nuclear arena is mature enough to take on world industry.

"Current research on nuclear domain in India and even strategic
aspect will not be affected," Kakodkar said while addressing the
business community on 'Indo-US nuclear deal -Advantage India' at
Indian Merchants' Chamber in Mumbai.

"There need be no fear of civil nuclear deal and Indian nuclear arena
is mature enough to take on world industry," he said.

As it is finalised that the Indo US Nuclear deal is being
operationalised whatever comes in way, the Indian Great Comrades have
chosen to inaugurate an anti imperialist Movement in India. They
never did do anything to defend the Indigenous people and did every
thing to divert Trade unions in Economism to create a Gestapo to
strengthen its Vote machine killing all the peasant Movements
including Telengana,Srikaukulam, Dhimri Block and Naxalbari!

The Marxists failed to launch an anti Imperialist movement since way
back in 1991 with the plantation of Dr Manmohan Singh in Indian Power
Politics. They were glad to make an alliance of Super Betrayer Pranab
Mukherjee all these years. They never resisted a populist movement
against Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation!

The perfect Comrador, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh ably supported
by Mukherjee and Gang defeated all the Rivals including Left and
Right in a Rat Race of Americanisation!

Marxists withdrew support and they happen to be more than ready to
support Congress once again after the deal is signed. As
Ideologically they have to oppose US Imperialism. at the same time,
again Ideologically they have to resist Fascist Hindutva. It won`t be
quite unfair that after afresh Elections, the Marxists would have to
return to the same secular Front to stop RSS. Thus, they did not
withdraw the support all these years and allowed every repressive
measures and helped Neo Liberalism and Globalisation change the
character of the Nation. The Nation lost sovereignty. Indigenous
Production system devastated. Indigenous People killed everywhere
every time. But Ideological Commitment stopped him to identify Neo
Liberalism and Globalisation with Corporate Imperialism. It is once
agin the case of Ideology that reversing rural development and Land
reform agenda, the Marxists had to run on the Super Highway of
Marxist Capitalist development and executing the indiscriminate land
acquisition for Urbanisation, industrialisation, Nuclear Plant and
Chemical hub and finally SEZ. It was once again the case of Ideology
in Singur and in Nandigram!

What an Ideology!

Fuck it!

It has nothing to do with any Ideology in this Galaxy!

It has never been an epic story of Personality Clash!

It has never been a case of so called National Interests!

It has never been a Parliamentary affair.

It is all the way a a deal for Hindu Zionist White Strategic
Readjustment to implement the Agenda of the Global Ruling Class in
the best Interest of Post Modern Apartheid Manusmriti .

Galaxy order led by US Corporate War monger Imperialism..

It is a classic case of Eye Washing to dodge the popular public
opinion and democratic set up limited by the Majoritarian electoral
system.

It is word by word an implementation of Parliamentary soap opera
script.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that the Group of Eight's
statement on climate change, food security and development provided
an "initial direction" but that quicker international action was
needed on these issues.

Referring to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement
that the text of the IAEA draft was ''classified'', Karat said, ''We
would like to know who has declared it classified.

We would like to know whether it is the government's decision to ask
the IAEA to keep it classified.''

In this context, he said a protocol, which the United States was
currently discussing with the IAEA, had been made available to all
members of the US Congress and was available on the internet for
anyone to access.

The Left has accused the Manmohan Singh government of pushing forward
the "notorious" nuke deal in its bid to fulfil its commitment to US
President Bush.The Left said the government has shown complete
callousness towards fulfilling its commitments to the people of
India. Addressing the media after a meeting with President Pratibha
Patil, CPM chief Prakash Karat said the government had not been
transparent about the deal at all.The Congress Working Committee will
meet on July 11 to discuss the ongoing political crisis, following
the withdrawal of support by the Left parties.

Minutes after the Left formally withdrew support to the UPA
government, Samajwadi Party on Wednesday submitted a fresh letter to
President Pratibha Patil backing the Manmohan Singh ministry.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has said that the Left parties
will continue their fight against the ''notorious'' nuclear deal. He
also said that there are reasons other than the nuclear deal for
withdrawing support to the UPA.

Supported by his counterparts of CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc, Karat
said the government had plunged the country into a political crisis
when people were groaning under price rise and a double-digit
inflation.Maintaining that the 59-member-strong Left parties had
sought five urgent steps to tackle the burgeoning prices, he said all
the demands were rejected by the government.

And here you are!

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday appreciated the
support of the Left parties to keep the communal forces at bay, but
the Congress attacked the Marxists, accusing them of having joined
the communal forces to destabilise the country.

"I am not entering into any acrimony. We appreciate the support the
Left parties extended to us for four long years to keep at bay the
communal forces. We do believe that to keep the communal forces at
bay, cooperation among all secular parties is needed," said Mr
Mukherjee, also the Leader of the Lok Sabha, implying thereby that
the Congress might have to do business with the Communists again
after the next elections.

"I do not indulge in sharing confidence or in a numbers game. I have
already stated that we are going to seek the vote of confidence," he
said when asked how confident the government was about winning the
trust vote.

But AICC media department chairman M. Veerappa Moily said, "They
(Left) have betrayed the interests of the nation and joined communal
forces to destabilise the country. They cannot afford to insult the
nation." He said even if there was no nuclear deal, they would have
withdrawn support. Asked if the Left was "secular", Mr Moily said it
was for them to explain.

Mr Moily came down heavily on the Left for the timing chosen to
withdraw support. "When the entire country is mourning the death of
diplomats and other people in Afghanistan, they found the time to
rejoice and withdraw support," he said, adding, "People of the
country will remember it."

And enjoy this dramatic appearance!

An angry Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash
Karat addressed the media after submitting the withdrawal letter to
President Pratibha Patil.

Karat was at his combative best as he attacked the United Progressive
Alliance Government of policy shortcomings and blamed it of being non-
transparent about the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal.

He demanded that the draft Safeguards Agreement be made public and
added that the Left would take every step possible to block the Indo-
US Civil Nuclear Deal.

"Our nuclear reactors will be placed under safeguards in perpetuity.
That text has been hidden from our people. It is an insult to the
Left," Karat said.

"At all stages of this notorious nuclear deal, Manmohan Singh
government has not been transparent and this country won't accept
this deal till all issues which we opposition and large sections of
the people have raised are clarified," he said.

With the Left withdrawing support to the government, several
Independent parliamentarians and single-MP parties have favoured the
Indo-US nuclear deal and may back the Manmohan Singh ministry in a
possible trust vote in the Lok Sabha.

Though critical of the functioning of Congress party at the regional
levels, the parliamentarians feel that the nuke deal is in the
country's interest.

Just see the mood of the Shining Sensex India!

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 231 points at 13,581 on the
back of positive cues from the global markets. Unabated buying
through the day helped the index extend gains as the day progressed.

The Sensex rallied to a high of 13,998, and finally ended with a
smart gain of 615 points (4.6%) at 13,964.

Reliance Infrastructure zoomed 10.7% to Rs 835, and Jaiprakash
Associates soared 10% to Rs 173.

Tata Motors rallied 7.5% to Rs 405. ITC surged 6.8% to Rs 184.

Reliance Communications and TCS advanced around 6% each to Rs 441 and
Rs 876, respectively. HDFC Bank added 5.7% to Rs 1,059.

BHEL, Reliance, Bharti and Infosys gained 5% each at Rs 1,575, Rs
2,080, Rs 747 and Rs 1,821, respectively.

Grasim, DLF, ICICI Bank and Larsen & Toubro, also, have moved up
nearly 5% each to Rs 1,752, Rs 450, Rs 622 and Rs 2,513, respectively.

NTPC has added 4.3% to Rs 168. HDFC and Tata Steel were up over 4%
each at Rs 2,095 and Rs 678, respectively.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Ambuja Cements, Maruti and Wipro gained around
3.5% each at Rs 534, Rs 77, Rs 589 and Rs 434, respectively.

Satyam, Hindustan Unilever and SBI were up around 3% each at Rs 482,
Rs 216 and Rs 1,239, respectively.

The NDA constituents led by BJP met at party leader L K Advani's
residence on Wednesday evening to decide its future course of
action.Following the meeting, the NDA demanded that the government
should be asked to prove its majority within a week. It also decided
to approach President Pratibha Patil in case the trust vote doesn't
take place soon.

It also demanded that a special session of Parliament be convened at
the earliest.

"There was some confusion in the public mindset because of certain
political differences between the UPA and the Samajwadi Party during
the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. To clear those doubts,
we have met the President to reiterate the support of Samajwadi Party
in favour of UPA government," SP General Secretary Amar Singh told
reporters after handing over the letter to Patil.

Samajwadi MP Ram Gopal Verma accompanied Amar Singh to the
Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"We have reiterated our earlier stand and support which were given in
favour of the Congress-led UPA Government," Singh said.

Asked whether the list of names given to the President had names of
all the 39 Samajwadi MPs, he said, "Names of parliamentarians, who
fought under the SP symbol are there in the letter and they are bound
by the party whip."

Singh said rebel Samajwadi MPs Beni Prasad Verma and Atiq Ahmed have
also promised their support.

"I just spoke to Beni Prasad Yadav and he has expressed his support
as well as that of Atiq Ahmed," he added.

Apart from this, Independent MP Baleshwar Yadav will also support the
Government, Singh said.

Earlier, the BJP alleged the timing of Left parties' withdrawal of
support to the government was "suspicious" as they waited till the
Congress clinched a deal with the Samajwadi Party to save the ruling
dispensation.

"The timing is suspicious. Were they waiting for the Samajwadi Party
to cosy up with the Congress? One thing is sure that the Left were
waiting for an opportune time, so that the government does not fall,"
BJP spokesperson Rajeev Pratap Rudy told reporters here.

The saffron party alleged a "private deal" between the SP and the
Congress, which the Left has "facilitated".

"The private deal between the SP and the Congress needs to be made
clear by the govt. It is managed more or less by the Left parties who
are the patrons of UNPA.

Nothing have changed since middle of 2007 then the Left's opposition
to the deal begun. It was all a ploy to ensure the government sails
through. The nation knows that the government's tenure has virtually
ended. The country is waiting for a change," he added.

The political parties of the Ruling Brahminical Hegemony have nothing
against the Nuclear deal or the strategic relations with United
states of America. In fact, the deal being a deal for Resurrection of
Hindutva confirms the Brahminical interests all the way heralding a
dreamland of Super Power Nuclear Hindu Nation!

Indira Gandhi worked for it.

Atal Behari Vajpayee followed suit. The height was the appointment of
APJ Abdul Kalam, the Missile man as the President of India.

Feudal Socialist Oxides and Zionist Gandhian Carbides stand united
rock solid in favour of the Hindutva deal. Quite amusingly, Pro
American Zionist Sangh Parivar leads the Opposition including the
Communists. In the Parliament all these political parties with all
the bastard ideologies stand united to pass anti people legislation
and use the forces of State Power for the all out annihilation
campaign against the indigenous aboriginal communities. But they pose
as artists so fine playing gladiators against one another. You may
not find a single MP or MLA who voices against the anti people
measures, violations of Human Rights and civil rights, massacres and
cruelest repression.

Hindutva played a great role to divide the Geopolitics.

Zionist Gandhi and his brigade including the socialists and
communists secured State Power for the three percent Brahmins. They
captured all the forums. They enslaved all the Ideologies. They
diluted all the dreams of liberation. They crushed all Insurrections.
All of them Contributed to the Grand Reality show of Shining Sensex
super power Hindu Nation!

Pdt Nehru ensured Sixty Five percent Congress Tickets for the three
percent Brahmins.

Indira Gandhi played the card of Bangladesh Liberation as the most
affirmative HindUtav Festival which ensured land slide victory for
her in 1971 Mid Term elections demolishing the after effects of the
Non congress experiments of 1967 General Elections. She wiped out
the Marxist Communist Socialist identities with her Hindu version of
Socialism and soviet Model of development. She tried it agian with an
alliance with the Sarvodaya and CPI declaring Emergency. She failed.

Indira Gandhi tried her best to revoke Hindutva with Operation Blue
Star which turned out to be an Unforgettable Holocaust for the Sikh
Nationality after 37 years of another disaster, the Holocaust of
partition with an Assassination of the Greatest Hindu Leader of
Indian history and she was none but Mrs Indira Gandhi. At this
juncture, RSS joined Congress. The Age Old God Rama was invoked to
replace the Incarnation of Durga. Arun Nehru opened the doors of Ram
Janma Bhoomi Temple which resulted the ultimate demolition of Babri
Mosque and Unquestionable Rise of Hindutva.

The Socialists and the Communists posing as the most creditable
crusaders against Fascist Hindutva did run a coalition in 1977 and in
1989.

Once again, the Marxists are aligned with the RSS to kill the Deal in
a super hit Reality Show live casted round the clock.
Anyone would know that it is the RSS which is most interested to
operationalise the Nuclear Deal.

In fact, every parliamentary political party favours the deal but
they are avoiding the responsibility to operationalise the deal.

Why?

In a clear indication that the parting is complete and a lot of dirty
linen would be washed in public in the days to come, Karat said that
the Left will release all the exchanges between them and the
government over the nuclear deal issues. Adding that he is unable to
make available two more notes as this "secretive" government took
them back.

In a detailed account of why they were forced to withdraw support,
Karat said the UPA and the Congress have violated the agreement that
they had with the left on the nuke deal.

They had made a commitment on November 16, 2007, that they would talk
to the IAEA, and based on the discussions there, would present a
paper to the UPA-Left joint committee, which would then be examined,
and only then the next steps would be taken. However, the convenor of
the nuclear deal sub committee, Pranab Mukherjee, told them that they
could not do so as the papers were classified.

He demanded to know who had termed the papers classified and whether
it was the UPA govt, or the IAEA.

Asserting that the text of the nuclear agreement is going to bind us
in perpetuity over safeguards, he took another swipe at Manmohan
Singh and his love for the USA.

"The Congress leadership and Dr Manmohan Singh always look up to the
USA, but there are some good things they should learn from the USA,"
he said, before delving into the latest US move to place before the
Congress some additional protocols that US wants for its own nuclear
deal with IAEA.

Saying that these documents are available to be viewed by anyone on
the internet, he wondered how Congress can now say that IAEA wants
these documents to be termed as classified. "Are we to believe that
the IAEA has one standard for the US and another for us," he asked,
adding that "no text can be classified unless the government itself
wants it to be termed so".

He demanded that the text be made public as the country's nuclear
scientists, experts and the people have a right to know what it
contains.

SP submits letter of support, claims backing of all its 39 MPs

Samajwadi Party on Wednesday claimed that its decision to support the
UPA government on Indo-US nuclear deal had the backing of all its 39
MPs who had fought the previous Lok Sabha elections on party symbol.

SP General Secretary Amar Singh submitted the party's letter of
support for the UPA government to President Pratibha Patil and later
told reporters that "names of all the MPs who had won by fighting on
party's symbol during last general elections are there in the list.
They all are bound by the party's whip on the issue."

Singh, who along with SP Parliamentary Party's leader Ram Gopal Yadav
had met the President, said that apart from the 39 MPs, independent
MP from Padrauna Baleshwar Yadav is also with the party on the issue
of support. "Baleshwar Yadav is basically of Samajwadi Party origin,"
Singh said.

The SP General Secretary said that he also spoke to estranged party
leader Beni Prasad Verma earlier in the day. "Verma assured us of his
support and also said that Ateeq Ahmad too would be supporting the
party."

Verma was elected as MP from Kaiserganj on SP ticket but had fought
last year's UP assembly elections on his own party Samajwadi Kranti
Dal's ticket against the SP.

While Ateeq Ahmad had won the 2004 general elections from Phulpur on
SP's ticket but was expelled from the party earlier this year after
his arrest.

However, the party could face problems from two of its MPs --
Munawwar Hasan and Jai Prakash Rawat.

IAEA step only after winning trust vote: Pranab

The United Progressive Alliance government will press on with the
implementation of the civilian nuclear deal with the United States
only after winning a vote of confidence in Parliament, External
Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here on Tuesday.

At a press conference here hours after four Left parties announced
withdrawal of support to the UPA, Mr. Mukherjee said the government
would take a decision on convening a special session of Parliament as
soon as they received a formal communication from the Rashtrapati
Bhavan asking them to prove their majority.

Though official sources indicated that the vote could be held as
early as July 21, the Minister would only say that the special
sitting would be called sometime before August 11, when the monsoon
session is due to begin.

Mr. Mukherjee said the government would send India's draft safeguards
agreement to the International Atomic Energy Agency Board for
approval only if it won the trust vote in Parliament. "I cannot bind
the government if we lose our majority," he said.

Were it to lose the vote, the government would continue in
a "technical" capacity until elections but would not have the moral
authority to "bind" the country to "an international agreement."

Asked whether he was confident the government had the requisite
numbers in Parliament, he said the "taste of the pudding is in the
eating" and that he did not "indulge in the sharing of confidences or
the numbers game." Everything would become clear when the trust vote
was held in the Lok Sabha.

On the Left's charge that the government did not show the text of the
safeguards agreement to the UPA-Left committee, he said the "outcome
of the negotiations" with the IAEA was shared in the form of a
summary of the safeguards draft. "But we could not share the actual
text as it is a classified document between India and the IAEA."

The IAEA Secretariat told India that the document could not be shared
with others without first being circulated to the agency's 35 board
members. That could not be done without India first signing it.
Notwithstanding this, the government had shown summaries of the
relevant provisions dealing with concerns such as fuel supply
assurances raised by the Left.

Mr. Mukherjee said he only wished to set the record straight. "I am
not entering into any acrimony [with the Left]. We appreciate the
support they gave us for four years to keep at bay the communal
forces."

No threat to UPA govt, will win trust vote: Lalu

The Left's withdrawal of support to the UPA government
notwithstanding, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Wednesday, exuded
confidence that the government will win the trial of strength in
Parliament.

"The government is safe....If it were not so, I would not be in
Patna....Everything has been arranged for (victory) and the Manmohan
Singh government will prove its majority in the House despite the
best efforts of the Opposition to pull it down," a relaxed Lalu said
addressing a gathering after inaugurating the 7th regional office of
CBSE here.

"The UPA government will last its full term and elections will be
held on time in April. People will give a befitting reply to the
communal forces trying to grab power through back door," Lalu, whose
RJD with 24 MPs in the Lok Sabha is the largest non-Congress UPA
constituent in the House, said.

Lalu, keen on avoiding burning bridges with the Communists, said
RJD's relations with them would be "as smooth and cordial as ever."

"Char saal pehle hamein tumse pyaar tha, aaj bhi hai aur kal bhi
rahega," (we were in love four years ago, and so we will be today and
tomorrow), he said.

N-deal vital for India and US: Bush
9 Jul 2008, 0950 hrs IST,PTI
TOYAKO: Unfazed by the political turmoil in India, a confident Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday discussed "progress" on the Indo-
US nuclear agreement with President George W Bush. The US president
said the deal is important for both the countries and heaped praise
on Singh "for his leadership at home". ( Watch )

The two leaders spoke in unison on strengthening the
bilateral "strategic relationship" as Singh took a two-hour drive
from Sapporo to meet Bush in the hot springs resort of Hotel Windsor
on Mt Poromoi on the sidelines of the G-8 summit. The two leaders met
hours before the Left parties were to formally withdraw support to
the UPA government on the nuclear deal.

"Our relationship with the United States has never been in such good
shape as it is today.... And it is the intention of my government...
whether it is a question of climate change... global economy, India
and US must stand tall, stand shoulder to shoulder, and that's what
is going to happen," Singh said after the 50-minute meeting that
stretched beyond the scheduled time.

Both Singh and Bush expressed mutual admiration for each other and
spoke of the need for closer relationship between the two countries.

"We talked about the India-US nuclear deal and how important it is
for our respective countries," Bush said as the two leaders appeared
before the press in a relaxed mood and displayed personal warmth.

"I respect the Prime Minister a lot. I also respect India a lot, and
I think it's very important that the United States continues to work
with our friends to develop not only a new strategic relationship,
but a relationship that addresses some of the world's problems," the
President said.

Indian sources, with access to senior officials at the talks, said
Bush gave his assurance that his administration would try and speed
up the legal and legislative processes, including pushing it through
the IAEA and NSG forums, so that the deal gets finalised well before
the end of the year and before he lays down office in January 2009.
Left-UPA divorce tops four years of troubled ties
http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=454002&archisec=NAT

New Delhi, July 08: The Left-UPA divorce on Tuesday capped a
tumultuous relationship on several thorny issues --ranging from the
Indo-US nuclear deal to the rising prices of essential commodities
and the government's inclination to open up financial and retail
sectors to foreign direct investment.

After agreeing with the UPA's Common Minimum Programme and extending
their support to the Congress-led coalition when it came to power,
the Left continued to maintain that the government should not deviate
from it.

The trouble became pronounced when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made
his first official visit to the United States in July 2005 and signed
a joint statement with President George Bush, which the Left said was
taking India closer to the American strategic interests.

Singh's visit had followed that of then Defence Minister Pranab
Mukherjee who had signed the Indo-US strategic defence framework
agreement, which led to increasing military ties and joint exercises
between the two defence forces.

The Left, which had been opposing the government's "neo-liberal"
economic policies, opened another front against its foreign policy
while accusing it of ignoring the CMP.

In the context of the rising inflation graph, the outside supporters
made a series of recommendations, including banning of futures
trading and slashing of taxes and duties on oil products, but
complained that their views were not considered by the government.

The four Left parties, with a strength of 59 members in Lok Sabha,
have been fiercely opposing liberalisation of the banking and
insurance sectors.

The Left's opposition to the UPA government also stemmed from the
government's pursuance of the policies of the erstwhile BJP-led
government to allow 74 per cent FDI in the banking sector, FDI in
retail trade as well as privatisation of major airports.

Their continued opposition led the Left parties to organise
nationwide protests on several occasions, besides opposing many
proposals inside Parliament.

The UPA-Left Coordination Committee, set up to monitor the
implementation of the CMP promises, was also disbanded as the outside
supporters felt "betrayed" that several major issues were not being
taken up.

On energy security, the four parties also wanted India to pursue the
Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project without "succumbing" to
US "pressures." They also sought explanations from the government on
India's vote against Iran at the IAEA.

The comrades, however, appreciated the government's efforts in
pushing through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the
Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (recognition
of forest rights) act.

Their continued pressure on the UPA to get the much- delayed women's
reservation bill finally bore fruit with the government tabling it in
Parliament. However, the legislation, which is a major CMP promise,
is yet to be passed.

As the Left parties went on the backfoot over the Nandigram issue,
they asked the Centre to amend the special economic zone laws and
rules to specify compensation and other social welfare measures for
those who would lose their land for major industrial or
infrastructure projects.

On badly-needed social security reforms in India, the Left again
opposed the government's move to privatise pension funds and invest a
portion of its corpus in the stock market. The pension fund
development and regulatory authority (PFRDA) bill is thus pending
before Parliament.

In August last year, the Prime Minister had dared the Left to
withdraw support to his government over the Indo-US nuclear deal. He
had said the deal in no way compromised India's position and would
rather end the country's nuclear isolation.

The Left and the UPA then set up a joint panel headed by External
Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to examine the nuclear deal but
there seemed no meeting ground.

On November 16 last year, the joint panel agreed that the government
would approach the IAEA secretariat to seek clarifications and the
deliberations would be reported to the UPA-Left Joint Committee.

"The government will proceed ahead only after the committee submits
its findings," the statement issued after the committee meeting had
said.

But the Prime Minister's statement on his way to the G-8 summit in
Japan yesterday that the government will approach the IAEA very soon
to get the safeguards agreement ratified provoked the outside
supporters who decided to pull the rug now itself.

They felt that the Prime Minister's statement had put both the UPA-
Left Committee as well as its Chairman Pranab Mukherjee in
a "ridiculous position," with the former saying the government had
decided to go to the IAEA and the latter asking the Left parties to
hold another round of meeting on the issue.

Bureau Report


Australia unlikely to oppose nuclear deal
9 Jul 2008, 1051 hrs IST,PTI

MELBOURNE: Australia is unlikely to oppose the Indo-US deal at the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, a crucial step in the completion of the
agreement, sources here. The Australian Opposition pushed the Kevin
Rudd Government to reverse its "hypocritical" stand of not selling
uranium to New Delhi.

The Labour Government was against uranium sale to India as it is not
an NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) signatory. Sources,
however, told The Age daily that Canberra was not expected to
obstruct approval of the Indo-US deal at the 45-member Nuclear
Suppliers Group.

The report came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Australian
counterpart Kevin Rudd for the first time on the sidelines of the G8
Summit in Toyako.

Rory Medcalf, an international security analyst at the Lowy Institute
for International Policy, said the Rudd Government needed to balance
Australia's increasingly important relationship with India with its
strong stance on nuclear non-proliferation.

"I would not rule out Australia making a few noises about the deal,"
he said adding "But I'd be surprised if Australia was the chief
obstacle to it at the Nuclear Suppliers Group."

At a meeting last month between External Affairs Minister Pranab
Mukherjee and his counterpart Stephen Smith, Australia had refused to
rescind the ban on sale of uranium to India. Australia had, however,
said that it would take a decision on approving the "123 nuclear
agreement" at the NSG when the time came.

Assocham in favour of Indo-US nuclear deal
Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry is supportive
of the Indo-US nuclear deal describing it as `in the interests of the
country'.

In a statement Assocham President Sajjan Jindal said tht who ever
supports the government on this issue, deserves to be praised.

Reacting on Left's withdrawal of support to UPA government, he said
that it did not spring a surprise since communists had made it clear
that if the government goes ahead with nuclear deal, they would
withdraw their support.

In a statement issued here, Mr. Jindal said that withdrawal of
support from Left's was anticipated. .

The nuclear deal would generate cooperation between India on the one
hand and nuclear power producing countries on the other since it
would help India generate nuclear power which is the need of hour,
said Mr. Jindal.

Time short for Indo-US nuclear deal: White House

Agence France-Presse
Toyako, July 08, 2008
First Published: 14:40 IST(8/7/2008)
Last Updated: 15:11 IST(8/7/2008)

The White House on Tuesday warned that time was running short to
ratify a landmark US-India civilian nuclear agreement during US
President George W Bush's term, which ends in January.

Speaking on the eve of Bush's talks at this mountain resort with
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, spokeswoman Dana Perino said the US
Congress had a heavy workload and "a limited number of legislative
days."

Perino brushed aside a question about whether Singh was expected to
announce that he is ready to move ahead with the agreement, saying it
was "premature to say" before the leaders met on the margins of a
rich nation summit.

"But obviously we've maintained a strong commitment to carrying
through on our side of the deal, and obviously India has had a lot of
discussion among its political parties," she told reporters.

"It's been a long road, and there's been a healthy debate," Perino
said.

"We'll have to see what he's able to bring on the India civil nuclear
agreement," she said. "It could be that he's ready to move forward --
but it also could just as likely be that they have a little bit more
work to do."

"But we obviously recognise as well that we have a limited number of
legislative days for our congress to get a lot of work done," said
the spokeswoman.

Singh on Monday arrived in Toyako, where he was expected to tell Bush
he will move ahead on the stalled nuclear cooperation accord despite
tough opposition.

Singh and Bush in 2005 unveiled an agreement to share civilian
nuclear technology -- a deal that when finalised would see India
entering the fold of global nuclear commerce after being shut out for
decades.

The Nuclear deal - some reservations
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20080708/0807302.htm

The die has been finally cast. The UPA government has decided to
approach the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to finalise
the India-specific Safeguards Agreement. Although there is a huge
amount of support within the country for the Indo-US Nuclear Deal,
one wished the government had been a little wary of some of its
implications. There are several issues which needed in-depth
consideration before the plunge was taken.
Firstly, the extraordinary interest shown by the US in the Deal
raises suspicions about its intentions. In whatever the US does its
national interest is always paramount, in pursuit of which it tends
to become overbearing and brash. Its Administration is not really one
which is known for altruism - without any motives. There is, surely
something more to the Deal than what meets the eye - something vital
which is at stake for the US and which, seemingly, hinges on it.
Nobody knows what it is. If it's only commercial, and not political,
we could consider ourselves somewhat blessed.

Secondly, the government should have been mindful of various
intimidating clauses of the Hyde Act. Touted as a domestic
legislation that enabled the Administration to negotiate the 123
Agreement for the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, it contains tell-tale signs
of the US intentions to bring India within its fold - a veritable
close embrace, seemingly, of more sinister nature than the "Soviet
bear-hug". The very Preamble of the Act has the unseemly provision
that India could be a "fit partner" if it, inter alia, had a foreign
policy that is "congruent" to that of the United States and that it
works "with it in key foreign policy initiatives related to non-
proliferation." Section 105 of the Act demands certification by the
US President that " India is fully and actively participating" in the
efforts of the US to "contain" Iran 's nuclear programme. More
importantly, it requires US Administration to scrap the 123 Agreement
if India conducted a nuclear test. The government's claim that the
123 Agreement overrides the Hyde Act seems a false belief. In a
crunch situation the latter can be used to force scrapping of the
Deal. One wished the government had been more transparent about the
matter.

Then, US ratification of the Deal will surely bring the two countries
much closer than they have ever been before. This, at once, is likely
to make Al Qaeda see India as a collaborator of the US and,
consequently, a major target for its foot soldiers for devastating
terrorist attacks. Al Qaeda surrogates are already operating against
the country from Pakistan and Bangladesh where they happen to be well-
entrenched with official and unofficial support. For them, our
borders virtually do not exist; they have a free run of the country
and are able to launch at will terror attacks on our sensitive
locations. Unless, like the US, we take strict and uncompromising
security measures, empowering, strengthening, upgrading and
modernising the entire internal security apparatus, proxy Al Qaeda
warriors could do the same with our atomic power facilities.
Hopefully, steps in these directions have been initiated.

Another issue that has remained unaddressed concerns the vital
question of disposal of the radioactive nuclear waste that will be
generated by nuclear power plants. Classified into three categories -
low level, intermediate level and high level wastes (HLW) - disposal
of the nuclear wastes has to be managed with great care for
protecting people and the environment from lethal effects of
radiation. Atomic power plants mostly generate HLW, some of which
take thousands of years to decay to half of their potency. Hence
after being stored for around 40-odd years in leak-proof sealed
casks, these have to be permanently buried in deep underground
geologically suitable repositories. The US is still to find a
suitable site for its HLW which are now due for burial, having been
around in sealed containers for some 40 years. One feels a little
uneasy about our capabilities, as we have made heavy weather of
disposal of the dangerous chemical wastes of the now-defunct Union
Carbide factory in Bhopal. Twenty years on, the wastes are still
lying at the site, polluting the surroundings and damaging the health
of the people of the area.

It is not yet too late to seriously consider some of these vital
issues that cast a shadow over the Deal. They need to be brought out
into public discourse for clarity and comprehension even as the Deal
cruises along on its pre-determined trajectory towards fruition.

Proloy Bagchi

Expressindia » Story
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Little-surprise--How-Left-
always-played-the-Opposition/333325/

Posted online: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 12:21:59
Updated: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 01:55:31
New Delhi, July 9: From outside supporters to a force that came in
the way of virtually anything and everything that the Government
attempted to do, the four Left parties played the role of Opposition
in the last 50 months, giving no leg room whatsoever to the UPA.
As the uneasy and at times acrimonious UPA-Left marriage finally
ended, The Indian Express scanned through the political statements
issued in the last four years by the CPM to find out that majority of
them were "opposing", "criticising" and "advising" the Government on
one issue or the other.

The comrades, who enjoyed authority without being in power, began
showing the red flag right from the word go and criticised the
Government at every stage.

Whether it was opening up of telecom, insurance, civil aviation,
agriculture and retail sectors to FDI, divesting shares of public
sector units, pension Bill, ordnance to amend Patents Act, foreign
policy issues or the Special Economic Zones, they slammed each and
every step.

So much so that when the UPA launched its ambitious National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Left was engaged in a war of
attrition with it over India's stance at the IAEA over Iran's nuclear
programme and accusing the Government of succumbing to US pressures.

But the parties have been by and large silent on health and education
issues except for the on-and-off demands for more budgetary
allocation for these sectors.

Out of the 300-odd political statements that the CPM issued in the
last 50 months, their opposition and reservations over the Indo-US
nuclear deal figured in as many as 50 of them, including those
released after the Central Committee and Politburo meetings.

Majority of the other statements advised the Government to either toe
their line or opposed key policy issues. Most of them ended with a
similar line — the Left will launch an agitation and mobilise public
support against the policies of the UPA Government.

Trouble began in the first year itself when the Left parties
criticised "inclusion of World Bank officials in Planning
Commission", alluding to the appointment of Montek Singh Ahluwalia as
Deputy Chairman, in September 2004.

They followed it up by opposing Government plans to disinvest shares
of public sector navaratnas and miniratnas and questioning scrapping
of Press Note 18 in October. In December, they disapproved the
ordnance route to amend the Patents Act.

They saw red in the decision to allow private domestic airlines to
operate on international routes and strongly opposed the hike in FDI
cap in telecom from 49 per cent to 74 per cent.

The first major showdown came in May, 2005 when the Communists
decided to stop attending the UPA-Left coordination committee
meetings in protest against the Cabinet decision to offload 10 per
cent of Government's equity in BHEL.

The Government had to blink after days of standoff and stopped the
BHEL divestment. The Left had drawn the first blood and they then
started advising Government on economic issues.

A proposal on reduced impact of price rise read: suspend road cess
increase, forego increased customs and excise Duty, make additional
crude cess available for stabilisation fund, suspend duty free
benefit for exports and review and withdraw sales tax concessions to
private refineries.

They opposed privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports and mounted
pressure on the Government to expedite the Iran-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline project.

They soon started dictating terms on key foreign policy and security
related issues as well — from asking the Government not to resume
military supplies to Nepal under the monarchy to desist from buying F-
16 fighters. They played the role of advisor while being the
stumbling block.

The Left also asked the Government not to engage in military ties
with Israel.

India's vote against Iran at the IAEA on Tehran's nuclear issue was
another flashpoint. The Left openly declared that the Manmohan Singh
government had surrendered to US pressure. The deepening Indo-US
defence ties was always a matter of contention and it finally ended
in the severing of UPA-Left ties.

Their pathological dislike for the US began threatening the UPA
Government in 2005, barely a year after it assumed office, when they
opposed any strategic ties with America.

The India-US Defence Framework agreement was the first irritant.

Then came the big nuclear showdown. After asking the Government to
reveal details of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, they graduated to
opposing the 123 agreement once the text was released by the
Government in August 2007.

The Communists asked the Government not to operationalise the deal,
but later allowed conditional negotiations on the safeguards
agreement with the IAEA. But the writing was on the wall that the
allies will not allow the Government to proceed further and will
withdraw support if it went ahead.

DELHI DIARYPublished: Wednesday, 9 July, 2008, 08:08 AM Doha Time

The Indo-US nuclear deal and `national interest'
By A K B Krishnan

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?
cu_no=2&item_no=228950&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22

THE acrimony of an impending break-up and the intense flirtations of
a budding romance have played out in agonising and entertaining slow
motion in the corridors of power in the Indian capital last week,
leaving everyone guessing about the actual dates and modalities of
both the divorce and the wedding.
But the moment came sooner than later. The tantalising uncertainty
hanging over the feverish political drama under the shadow
of "national interests" vis-a-vis the Indo-US nuclear deal came to an
end early this week.
The Left parties, who kept asserting that the threat to withdraw
support to safeguard "national interests" is not an empty one, did
pull the rug at last and decided to meet the president today to
formally declare their withdrawal of support to the UPA government.
They said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statements on moving the
IAEA soon had rendered any further talks on the issue meaningless and
wanted the government to prove its majority on the floor of the House.
The Left, which was enjoying power without responsibility, has
decided on the break-up after its early attempt to forestall Manmohan
Singh's attendance at the G8 summit failed. It is the Left's failure
to appreciate the value of ending India's nuclear isolation that has
driven the communists off the political cliff.
While the Left's arguments against a strategic alliance with the US
deserve a hearing, its attempts to link India's nuclear liberation
with American "imperialism" have been simply outlandish. The image
the Left parties have been beaming so far across to the national
audience is that of a confused group, superficial in their loud
rhetorical posturing and unable to part ways in one decisive movement
before the UPA's completion of the five-year term.
By far the worst manifestation of the politicisation of the deal, and
India's foreign policy, was the regrettable attempt of the CPM to
communalise the issue. Nothing could have been more absurd and
avoidable than its remark that those "supporting" the deal would lose
their Muslim vote bank.
In the history of Indian democracy, this remark must rank among the
most damaging to its secularism and diversity. It is unfair to the
Muslim community in India to assume that it opposes the agreement by
virtue of religion. This only serves to illustrate how far the party
under Prakash Karat has strayed from true Marxism.
The UPA government too was at the end of its tether and was firm this
time and proclaimed its resolve to go ahead with the deal. Briefing
reporters on the prime minister's visit to the G8 summit from July 7-
9, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon avoided all questions about
timeframe and said: "We want to go ahead with it (the deal), we will
do our best, we will go ahead with it as soon as we can…."
"There is absolutely no threat to the UPA government which will sign
the nuclear deal with the US in time, come what may. There is no
hesitation in this regard," asserted Parliamentary Affairs Minister
Priyaranjan Das Munshi.
The Congress did not leave anything to chance. Intense political
activity was unfolding behind closed doors in New Delhi. Samajwadi
Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh held back-to-back
meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and with UPA chairperson
Sonia Gandhi. After getting former president A P J Kalam's
endorsement of the nuclear pact, the Samajwadi leaders stressed that
the nuclear deal is in "national interest". But if the N-deal has
passed muster, details of the "M-deal" remain to be ironed out.
The Congress was obviously putting all its eggs in Mulayam's basket,
hoping that he will sustain the UPA in the numbers game in the Lok
Sabha. And Mulayam himself seems ready to leave his
erstwhile "friends and comrades" of the Left and the UNPA (the Third
Front parties) in the lurch instead of his early plans of leading
them against both the Congress and the BJP.
Every party claims it acts in the national interest. But who defines
what the nation's interests are and what are beneficial or not to the
nation? The controversy over the nuclear deal reveals the confusion
and hypocrisy. In the case of the Left parties, the matter becomes
more complex, since in their ideology, the national interest is made
to intersect with other interests, specifically those of class.
The Left believes that the deal will bring India too close to the US,
so close that India might lose her independence in the realm of
foreign policy. So it is the sheep of the Left's anti-Americanism
that is being dressed up as the anti-nuclear deal mutton.
Critics could also point out that communists in India have not always
supported policies that are incontrovertibly beneficial to the
national interest.
The BJP's opposition to the deal is inexplicable. The party, which
took the last and dramatic step to make India a nuclear power,
believes that nuclear power is in India's national interest. Yet it
is opposed to the Indo-US nuclear deal, which will enable India to
bring supplies to its starving reactors. Its opposition obviously is
to the Congress doing the deal. The deal and what constitutes
national interest have come to be identified with the Congress. The
fate of the deal is now tied to the continuation of the government
that is led by the Congress. But there is no guarantee that had the
Congress been in the opposition, it would not have objected to a
similar deal if it were being made by a BJP government.
Till the other day, the Samajwadi Party too was opposed to the deal.
But its flirtations with the Congress made it a convert overnight,
but not before Kalam's "convincing advice that the deal is in
national interest".
Kalam, of course, is one of India's foremost missile scientists and
the best-loved president. But, surely there's another reason that he
was chosen for the exercise.
He's Muslim and when he says the deal is in "national interest", the
two political parties hope it's a powerful antidote to the
reactionary clerics who argue otherwise.
The phrase "national interest" has thus become an item in the
politicians' rhetorical baggage. Politicians are not the sole
guardians or repositories of national interests. They only make what
are matters of national interest into electoral issues to gain votes.
The bickerings over the nuclear deal show up Indian politics at its
worst. Political interests invariably triumph over those of the
nation. Easy options are often preferred to tough decisions. With
inflation raging and stock markets plummeting, political stability
should be the greatest concern at the moment. But survival in office
takes precedence over a creative response to varied challenges facing
the nation. And this could be as true of the opposition as it is of
the government.

US Congress may not have time to pass Indo-US Nuke deal
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/us-congress-may-not-
have-time-to-pass-indo-us-nuke-deal_10069388.html

Washington, July 9 (ANI): Despite Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan
Singhs daring effort of shunning his Left coalition partners and
announcing going ahead with the Indo-US deal, it seems the US
Congress may not be able to give its final approval, as it requires
at least 30 days of continuous session to consider it which is not
likely to happen in the days to come.

The US Congress stamp on the deal does not seem possible, since
(because of the long August recess) less than 40 days are left before
the US Congress session adjourns on Sept. 26, said a report in the
Washington Post.

And, before that, India is to clear two more hurdles - completing an
agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and
securing approval from the 45 nations constituting the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) which governs trade in reactors and uranium.

At this point, both [the IAEA and NSG actions] have to take place in
the next couple of weeks for the deal to be considered by the US
Congress, said Lynne Weil, the spokeswoman for the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.

But, the IAEA Board of Governors is not expected to take up the
matter until August, whereas the NSG may take several months to reach
a consensus, added the paper.

Now, with the near impossibility of US Congressional passage by year-
end, officials and experts have begun to focus on the possibility
that other countries such as France and Russia would rush in to make
nuclear sales to India while US companies still face legal
restrictions, added the paper.

But, a US State Department official, on the condition of anonymity,
said that the Bush administration might pressure the US Congress not
to thwart potential business opportunities for American companies. It
is the hidden force of this agreement It is US business that sees an
opportunity, the paper quoted him as saying.

In the event of the deal not getting passed by the US Congress and
the US Presidential elections approach, New Delhi will have to wait
for the results with fingers crossed. While Republican candidate John
McCain is a strong supporter of the agreement, his Democratic rival
Barack Obama, is more skeptical about the deal, said the paper.

It added that during the Congressional debate on the Hyde Act, Obama
inserted language in the bill limiting the amount of nuclear fuel
supplied to India from the United States to deter nuclear testing.
(ANI)

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