I re-post the issue for consideration of IPI members & would want to
know if any member has suggestions for dealing with the situation. How
do members feel about this deal & what are the gains & losses as you
see them. How can the deal be stopped?
Thanks.
Capt KN Khankhoje

INDO-US NUCLEAR-COPERATION DEAL,
KHANKHOJES' observations & comments



1. The Indo-US nuclear cooperation deal is the most secretive
non-transparent & mysterious deal that the Indian public (in general)
& the Indian Parliament are being thrust upon. It is no coincidence
that the deal is taking place under the aegis of a 'yes-master' - who
himself is under a party that only knows & follows 'servility'. The
party retains no pride in its own nation's achievement, & can go to
any length to compromise national security. This is evident from the
events unfolding over the last two years. What is amusing is the
reportage of the 'US-congress' debates & proceedings, weightage given
to various proposals by its members & the likely holdback-clauses.
Official feedback by GOI & Indian think tanks negotiating the deal or
its politicians have virtually uttered not a word. That's an
astonishing demonstration of apathy & negative participation by the
elected representatives of India, on a subject so vital for
nation-development & the future-generations. Political parties within
the ruling alliance & those sitting in the opposition are fully
blameworthy for having the PM get until this far in the deal.
Complicity & inaction by these public-representatives make them
equally responsible & blameworthy of a sell-out of national interest
by the PM & his team. It will be hard for these representatives to win
their voters over this time around as soon as they understand the
gravity of the sellout.
2. This nuclear deal is truly the mother of all sell-outs perpetrated
on this nation by politicians & bureaucrats, as they have placed
themselves above parliamentary-consensus & beyond questioning.
Reportedly, in this case, not even the drafts of the deal are made by
the Indians- they are received ex-USA for ratification by India. The
stalling, of proving the most significant scientific achievement of
this nation - the 'Agni-III', at the behest/pleasing of USA in favour
of the 'deal' is the naked truth of servile nature of this deal. It
also portrays the desperation of the 'rulers of India', to be doing
the bidding for the US - just so as to receive US-accolades, by
acceding to every shift in the goal-post since commencement of the
negotiations. The blackmail on Iran-issue & implied threats to the
deal, should India's 'Agni-III' be test fired, are only paralleled by
the language used by the US in dealing with North Korea or IRAN.
Nowhere has the rational & need for agreeing to this nuclear deal been
explained. To whose benefit is this deal, since costs in monetary
terms have not been spelt out & costs of curbs on
sovereign-independence of nuclear entities & en-perpetuity clauses
cannot be defined? Dependence of India on an extraneous parliament for
its national needs or for certification of good-conduct by an
extraneous President defies numeric evaluation. So what & who is the
giver & who is the taker in this 'deal', & are the components
equitable to be considered as a fair deal in such a high-stakes give &
take? Who defined these crucial negotiating blocks & who has
commissioned any national debate to arrive at any semblance of
consensus within the nation? Certainly not the Parliament of India.
Zillions of such questions of the Indian public - but no obvious answers.

3. Target India. The stated objectives of the 'super power' & the
'other four' are unambiguous - i.e.: "cap & roll back the Indian
nuclear deterrent". None of the above P5 has expressed any
contradictory ambitions. On the other hand, the national objectives
for India can be none other than maintaining minimum credible nuclear
deterrent & the strategic independence of every resource going into
producing & keeping these capabilities independent. For a poor nation
as India, optimization of its assets had obviously been the key to
beat the strict 'technology-denial regimes & constraints' & the
incarceration that India had to undergo at the hands of the P5 & the
US in particular. What is not understood is as to what material
paradigm shift has taken place that warrants an iota of shift in
India's stand towards US on the nuclear issue? Beyond explicitly
commercial reasons of resurrection of its own dying nuclear industry,
there is no sudden spurt of generosity on the part of US that
necessitates a change in their national objectives stated earlier. So,
then, where & how does India fit-in in the overall scheme of things?
Like the closing factory-line of F16s, the US nuclear industry too
(which hasn't erected a single nuclear power plant in the past 35yrs)
also needs to be resurrected to save American jobs- directly affecting
forthcoming US elections. What better scapegoat than India whose
politicians/babus anyway look for any & every morsel of praise labeled
'made in USA', kickbacks aside! What other reason would there be for
even a mad man to surrender a fully functional nuclear program at the
altar, for separation & butchering? Not only that, to enable killing
of the cradle & nursery of India's nuclear establishment ( its
multiple autonomous research-institutions) is a crime paralleled only
by feticide - 'nip it in the bud', & the deal does just that. All the
research & learning that goes into making the nation a vibrant
independent nuclear entity, at its multiple autonomous research
establishment, would end up under US/international-scrutiny at the
same butchery.

4. If it aint broke then what are you fixing 'Man..'? This is stated
to be primarily a civilian nuclear cooperation deal & if that is the
essence, `recency' of the product on offer, its competitiveness &
safety record of in-use models, cost effectiveness, political-bindings
& constrains and indigenizing-potential of the entire deal are
significant aspect that need to be made known first. It is irrational
to work out the deal in void, & that's pretty much what is happening
in this case. If US hasn't erected a single nuclear plant in the past
three & half decades & or its policies preclude further erection of
nuclear-plants, then we are in for outdated product or are we simply
the guinea-pigs for their trials & cash-cows for that nation, since we
can afford to be neither of these? Can US install the same power plant
on its own soil as what it proposes we buy, & is it doing so in the
near future? How many such plants has it installed in the past 35
years? What are the comparative costs & limitations vis-à-vis a
Russian or French offer of the similar kind? Are they demanding such
constrains as the US is? What's the limitation if the same target of
power generation is attained using multiple indigenous low-capacity
220/540/1000MW TAPs, RAPs & Kundakulam type reactors, whose
technology-content may be of vintage design? These may be of
vintage-design but are robust, proven, & are a known entity in every
sense. It is only a matter of committed tasking of the DAE, for the
objectives identified by the `new deal', & that will deliver the goal
in-house instead of a national sell-out. At an average of Rs.6.61
crore per MW of nuclear power cost to India for its TAPs, RAPs &
Kundakulam reactors, are the eight US reactors @ $20billion (over
eight years) going to be even a fraction cheaper than this? Would the
estimated recurring expenditure of $2.01 billions per-annum for these
eight reactors be lesser to that being expended on the motley-crowd of
reactors we hold today? Are we gaining in technology so enormously as
to warrant such a gigantic expenditure? If `Enron deal' of the past is
anything to go by, Indians need to be doubly sure that there is no
encore as the scope & spectrum of inflated costs & mischief is in
multiples of the past Enron-deal. Worse still, it will be almost
un-scrutinable, considering the category of product & the
intra-governmental nature of the deal. But to date, neither the Indian
parliament nor the Indian public are any the wiser about the deal,
they both have been kept in the dark & are as blind as a bat. The
Indian public has a right to know the details of the deal since the
financial figures involved are simply astounding and incomprehensible
to any ordinary Indian. Mathematical-vocabulary of digits starts
tottering at a `crore' for the ordinary Indian & call out the word
`billion' – it makes no sense since the number of zeroes at the end
will have to be revised/told to him. And when you say dollars, the
magnitude of the costs simply sums up to be `astronomical &
unacceptable'! So is the deal `technology' for `technology' sake only?
Or Are we expected to be handed over a magic-wand made in USA, that
would defy all science & generate power at double the rates from the
same reactors we hold, or those that will come to us? And if that is
not the case, if it aint broke then what are you fixing with this
deal, Mr. PM? The AERB former-boss Dr. A Gopalakrishnan has brought
out the significant differences between the words & deeds of the US
administration in the article "A deal of broken assurances" in the
Asian Age of 07Julo6. The examples of disparity, in the assurances
given by the Prime minister to the Indian Parliament & the
recently-cleared bills from the US congress, are alarming & what makes
the matters downright dangerous, is the fact that the PM or his team
handling the negotiations have not had the courage to explain to India
how can such disparity be considered acceptable to the people &
Parliament of India. There is a limit to servility & sale of national
interests, & if this deal goes through – it will indeed be the biggest
act of treachery/subterfuge/undermining of national interests – call
it what you want, that independent India has seen.

5. Cap & roll-back for India? All indications are that India is being
held to its voluntary-commitment of no further nuclear-tests, & will
be bound to it in the text of the deal. (As anticipated, this has been
so defined in the bills floated/cleared by the US Senate, an ominous
portend of the credibility gap in the US talk & deed). This
effectively precludes development & testing of any new genre of
weapon, even when the weapon/s tried during the 1998 test have yet to
be proved in other than `prototype' stage. Those tests were questioned
even then & need to be doubly questioned if all proving is to cease
henceforth, implying, any call for `test-ban-moratorium' at this stage
is premature & self-defeating. Our declared moratorium only serves the
cause of the `CTBT-hawks' of the US senate who abound in numbers. Such
lofty proclamations (`test-ban-moratorium') hold no water when the
nation evolves a nuclear strike force & builds the entire deterrent &
associated strategy upon an as-yet unproven weapon. Should the weapon
fail upon deployment, your deterrent-bluff will be called off with
disastrous consequences to the nation. Testing of the production-type
weapon/s is inescapable & imperative for the development of the
strategic tirade, & must be accomplished before conceding to any
moratorium on testing or inching towards the CTBT. The corollary
being, doing a series of tests proving your `weapon system' in all its
elements (including the proving to production-stage of the delivery
mechanisms) before letting any deal cast its shadow on this
essentiality becomes imperative. Can the dealmakers assure the nation
if such is the case & that we haven't buckled, & nor have we been
hemmed-in by some hidden clauses that curb our need? Should this not
be acceptable to the US, are we ready to drop the deal as a hot
potato? The clauses in the `bill' cleared by the US clearly belay the
fears, and directly impinge on India's freedom to conduct test firing
of the weapon or the delivery mechanism. They contradict the
assurances given to the Parliament of India by the Prime Minister of
the country.
Seperation & fissile material clauses.
6. Keeping the imperative of further testing in mind, it becomes
incomprehensible when GOI entertains thoughts & dialogues, of any kind
whatsoever, which hint at the acceptability of curbs on the production
of the fissile material or on the further testing of the weapon-types.
This is wrong for the GOI to do it today, just as it was wrong for the
GOI under the NDA to do so then, assuming NDA Govt. offered such a
step. No incumbent GOI need be given the right to barter off the
future of this nation for adjudication by an extraneous parliament or
an extraneous President. Whilst each nuclear test entails expending of
a scarce resource (Uranium), it is inescapable for the validation of a
design, & further on, for the proving of the functionality of the
final-design-weapon periodically. The process therefore inherently
implies a constant & copious supply of the fissile material over
extended period until the size of the deterrent is established. This
of course would entail defining the `minimum-credible deterrent' in
some broad terms, but multiple factors & the flexibility of the
situation demands that that be not defined! So, in such circumstance,
any US-congress-bill that infringes, in its terms & conditions the
availability of fissile material to India is an absolute `No-No' & the
bill needs being rejected at first sight. There can be no
differentiation made between any sub-component of the `deal'
(operative-part or non-operative etc) as the deal in its entirety must
be fully appreciative of the Indian perspective first & last. India is
not dying sans this bill, & in fact it may start so if the deal
materializes in its current shape. There, then, comes the issue of
supporting US-objective for bringing about `FCMCT'. It wasn't an issue
that was supported by this nation when it was first introduced, &
nothing has changed that warrants a change of heart from the holistic
approach India had adopted earlier. Any wordings or conditions imposed
in the deal bringing about FMCT are inherently detrimental to Indian
strategic interests & therefore unacceptable. By specifically &
exclusively dealing on the issue of fissile-material-cutoff visa-viz
US objectives & trying to tie-up India into their objectives, the US
has let the cat out of the bag. It first links the entire deal to the
`voluntary-moratorium' announced by India & tries to convert it into a
legally-binding `test-ban' with the scope of suspension of the deal,
should India go ahead with any nuclear tests. Asking India to assist
in bringing about the US objectives of fissile-material cut-off on
this planet, & directly in contradiction of India's own position of
the past decades, effectively asks India to axe its own foot. It makes
India close whatever avenues it has for enhancing its nuclear arsenal
i.e. `capping' of the nuclear potential. As a direct effect, the
nuclear potential is capped even before your `weapon/s' has been
tested. The situation becomes no different than that for Iran or North
Korea, which the US already considers to be in possession of nuclear
weapons. What a deal to step into Mr. Manmohan Singh !! Then comes the
second part of the strike/blow- sorry the deal! That part does the
rollback act. The separation of the existing establishment into two
categories cuts our limbs & ensures a cost-burden beyond the
acceptable. Why the nuclear pundits of India & the PMO-mandarins
conceded to this negative act is beyond comprehension, particularly so
when cost-effectiveness for a poor nation lies in synergy & combined
usage of its scarce resources. Surely as an economist of world repute
it doesn't take a layman to bring this to the PM's notice / fore. What
then are the causes, which make these eminent & highly placed
mandarins concede to this act? Why could these constrains not have
been imposed on the reactors under consideration of the deal, why
bring the old stock into the negotiation-fold? These were under
different agreements & specific constrains of inspection were in place
to specific deals – so why dismantle those & replace them with added
constrains to US / IAEA wishes? The deal is about getting additional
`power' & not about curbing/killing existing resources & potential, so
why has the GOI conceded to even talk about our existing facilities in
any new deal at all? With the frame of the deal as defined by the PM
in the parliament, the potential to progress on the nuclear-weapons
front diminishes by below 50% upon the `separation'. Couple that to
the FMCT-constrains coming into effect through the backdoor, the
possibility of retaining any nuclear deterrent would become well neigh
impossible. India will have a diminishing number of weapons, if
anything. So, for the sake of power, we loose real power in the true
sense – firstly by a crippled nuclear-weapons program & secondly by a
handicapped power-generation system that is dependent entirely upon
the US congress / President's wishes. India's client state /
subservient-status blows the nations' residual prestige sky high. A
double whammy is the added burden of thousands of crores of
foreign-indebtedness, exclusively on account of this deal. At
approximate cost of Rs10.0+ crores/Mwe of energy for the proposed
reactors, as against @Rs6.61 crores/Mwe for the existing nuclear
reactor with India, the capitation will be crippling & so will its
sustenance with the entirely imported fuel component. The scenario
will be right to roll back the nuclear deterrent, since all the above
factors coupled with the political-encumbrances entailed on account of
the deal, would make upholding the nuclear-torch unviable. The
principle of `immobilizing India's fissile material production' is
absolutely enshrined in purport of the bills presented by the US so
far. Why wonder if the bill was passed almost unanimously, since
either of the political parties alternates at the helm & the bill
achieves the US national objective of hegemony anyway!
7. Why separation when we are buying every nut & bolt & paying for
every gram of the fuel? Separation was justified only if we were
receiving these reactors as gift - gratis, & not when we are
purchasing these. I would tell US to go-ahead & sell these or gift
them to Pak & see the fun! The least costly of the alternative for US
being, let its nuclear industry scale down to its own needs or close
shop, but don't sell this deal to India! But no, US has to have its
fist in this pie too & hence the deal. Enron has shown the lead in
imposing excruciating conditions on this hapless nation, since
politician of every hue has soiled his hands in Enron-muck & emerged
unscathed to date! The term 'educating the Indians' can easily pass
off for doling unaccounted benefits to powers-that-be Enron-style, a
euphemism for bribing & yet getting accounted in the overall cost.
8. In the IE of 26/06/06's, Raja Mohan indicates the possibility of
India being able to buy & stockpile the life-cycle equivalent quantity
of fuel for every reactor as a 'strategic reserve'. What is
unexplained is the rationale of ending up purchasing fuel, from the
current status of being able to producing its own nuclear-fuel. The
financial lock-up & commitment entailed are unwarranted burdens of an
unwarranted deal being sold to India as a 'unique....never conceded to
any non-nuclear weapons state'. Are we to feel elated or consider
ourselves elevated to the status of a nuclear weapons state? Do all
other concessions & latitudes then pass-off to India automatically as
are applicable to the nuclear weapons-states? And all these clichés
just so that India subjects itself to permanent safeguards, unlike the
nuclear weapons-state! What a contradiction of acts, intent &
portrayal! It will be very clear to Mr. Raja Mohan that the bills
cleared grant no such latitude & in fact preclude stockpiling for a
life cycle of the reactor. So what's the new tack you propose to give
the deal? What's the chosen hue, now that the `bills' are in print?
Decisions that will haunt India
9. These, in my view constitute the vital issues that will haunt
India's current & future generations, & their debilitating effects
will effect linger on for many more generations to come. They can be
likened to the effects of centuries of subjugation the Indians endured
under the various `Raj's of yesteryears.
a. Conceding to status of `Non-nuclear state'. Acceptance of being
labelled / categorised as & treated as a non-nuclear state, despite
being otherwise, consequent its signing this nuclear-deal. Should
India decide to unshackle itself from these bonds, it stands labelled
as a rogue state for having broken an agreement, possibly an
International-multisided agreement. Damned if you do & damned if you
don't state.
b. Conceding to in-perpetuity irrevocable inspections. Acceptance of
international inspection applicable to non-nuclear state & compounding
the ignominy by conceding to these being 'in-perpetuity, all
enveloping, intrusive & irrevocable'.
c. En-perpetuity-shackled. En-perpetuity indebtedness & dependence of
the Union of India & its citizen towards nuclear fuel for the nuclear
plants to be setup on its own soil, despite the nation having adequate
potential to generate its own nuclear fuel at a fragment of the cost
to the imported fuel.
d. Surrendering India's' 'atomic-energy' independence. Surrendering &
capitulating to US, India's' 'atomic-energy' independence/programs
that withstood all the curbs & constraints imposed by that country, &
yet blossomed. Subjugating India to the 'License-raj' of the US
government / NSG nations & loosing principle control of its own
responsible & essentially vital nuclear establishment.
e. Capitulating to `safeguards' on indigenous-institutions.
Unconditional conceding to terms & conditions of
"India-specific-safeguards", whose very non-existence, makes a mockery
of all the tough line & posturing done by all the preceding
Governments of India of the past forty years. A blank-cheque to
destroy what the toiling Indian Scientific community created over
those years. To cap it, further/onward cooperation would be dependent
on 'waiver-bills' & 'good-conduct conditions' being fulfilled by this
nation to US specifications in particular & International
specifications as negotiated, in general. To rub salt into the injury,
China didn't have to undergo any such humiliation for all the
nuclear-cooperation it received from the US!
f. Stand discriminated. Undermined its principled stand on the
discriminatory NPT, by conceding to conferment of 'discriminated'
status upon itself.
g. Acceding to FMCT, CTBT NPT etc despite having been a bulwark to the
contrary. Capitulated to back door, if not outright acceding to, curbs
& limitations imposed by FMCT, CTBT, NPT & whatever curbs &
limitations the senators sitting in the US senate wish or the
President of US wishes. I wonder what stops Russia, France or Canada
or for that matter any other foreign Government/NSG-nations, from
imposing upon India any strictures it may want imposed on lines of the
US-treaty, for every 'screw' it sells India under the
'nuclear-suppliers-group' banner!
h. Conceptual role-confinement to Asian plateau. Conceding to /
equating India with Pakistan, & never with China, in the entire deal &
receiving commensurate disparate terms of agreement vis-à-vis China,
despite China having a worse-off record & being a nuclear-defaulter in
all sense.
i. Irrational rationalization. Rationalising for the disparity
vis-à-vis China, by the Foreign Secretary saying, "it is a nuclear
state", ipso facto relegating India's own status to a "non-nuclear
State", instead of fighting to gain parity & standing of a
"Nuclear-State", at the cost of the deal itself.
j. Bound to our own voluntary restrain. Voluntary test-ban/moratorium
announced by India being construed by the US as legally binding,
effectively imposing CTBT without India signing the same. Added to
this are the multiple avenues for the US in its laws, to scuttle all
process upon India conducting a nuclear-test. If every nuance of the
US-senate / President of the US is India's liability & order where
does the Indian Parliament & public have a say? Whilst on October 13,
1999 the US Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, India
committed itself to a 'voluntarily moratorium' on further tests after
the 1998 tests - two acts diametrically opposite in their purport &
commitment. Yet, why has the GOI permitted the US to coerce itself
into the constrain / adherence to CTBT & into the eventual signing of
the CTBT regardless of the other P5-states not signing the treaty,
including the US itself? Notwithstanding all this, the signing of the
current nuclear deal & the CTBT would be the antithesis of India's
long-standing opposition to the discriminatory treaty & India's
consistent demand for an overarching concept of a complete
disarmament, put up at the United Nations under the 'Rajiv Gandhi Plan'.
k. Capitulation to US pressure. Capitulation to US pressure resulting
in curtailment of the most ambitious of missile-delivery system of
this nation, viz. the Agni III, for the sake of the Indo-US agreement.
These are traits that all Congress governments have been unable to
beat - capitulate to foreign interests overriding India's own
interests. The solitary & the most significant gain of the 98 nuclear
blast was to propel this nation into a different league, a different
plane altogether, & this Congress-lead regime has gone & reversed all
that, by throwing us back into the oblivion of non-nuclear-state
category. Fifth columnists couldn't have done a better work for their
foreign-government/masters paying them, than what this government has
done for the US.
l. `Boxed-in' state. Voluntarily / circumstantially being boxed into
the rigid framework of discriminatory instruments of NPT, CTBT, FMCT &
MTCR, prematurely & entirely against its own principled stand of over
four decades. This in effect has 'capped' all that was of the Indian
nuclear deterrent & would eventually lead to a roll-back when India
gets to discover the gap between what America promises & what it has
set out to do with this deal. The façade of public debates in the US &
the total lack of information within India at all levels works
excellently for the show to go on, since the feedback from US media
will keep Indian-public minds occupied whilst the Indian Government
will coax the ignorant/disinclined Parliamentarians into submission.
m. Playing it `blind'. Blindly going into a deal that was not even
thought through, debated nor reviewed by its own experts, jeopardizing
its entity as a 'advanced nuclear state/power' even if not recognized
by the P5. The entailing & unwarranted splitting of the nuclear
establishment is a clear example of thoughtlessness & pussilimany.
n. Promoting foreign industry at the cost of indigenous nuclear
industry. The deal itself, which assumes a lot that has not been
specified to this nation, is essentially meant to revive a dying
US-nuclear industry at the cost of the modestly thriving Indian
nuclear-industry. Indian industry that has matched up to the advanced
standards & created independence, despite grave & crippling
constrains, will now be deprived & starved of the requisite funds,
autonomy, avenues & importance due of its exisistantial-significance.
o. Enhanced indebtedness of the Indian overall. Creation of a
monster-deal that will put every Indian into a gargantum debt -
neither of their consent nor of their necessicity. It will be a deal
that will surpass the 'Enron-deal' in multiple order of hundred, if
not more. This deal will be far from scrutiny by the nature of the
agreements & the context being nuclear. Therefore, no-access to
information & neither any recourse to scrutiny, will be the hallmark
of the most encumbering deal for the Indian state & its citizen. The
Indian will simply be working his arse off to keep his nose above the
debt-level whilst his US / world suppliers would be raking in 'moola'
by-the-second for every unit of energy created on India's' own soil.
p. Killing the indigenous research institutes. An 'unheard of'
"conceding autonomy of ones' own research institutions", which was not
even demanded of a proliferating-nation such as China. It is a
horrendous act that has killed the nations' cradle & the nursery of
nuclear-studies / advanced studies. This is the most damaging act in
the entire deal, as the 'generation of knowledge' itself has been
killed in one-fell-stroke. No industrial establishment of this nation
will thenceforth have access to this resource & will not be able to
offload its research/industrial requirement/query to the nations own
establishments in due confidence. Every aspect will then be
internationally scrutinized & sanctioned for indigenous research if so
considered & conceded, or denied to this nation. Unimaginable, simply
unimaginable, that a political-party/citizen of this state would
shackle his country with such laws.
q. Conceding to a status below that of a proliferator-nation. Acceding
to a status below that of a nation reckoned by the US itself as a
'proliferator-nation' (China), whilst not having flouted any
international-norms or agreements, thus nullifying its impeccable
record of an otherwise conduct, for a naught. The entailed 'separation
of civil/defence' establishment is the most unwarranted &
un-optimising act that the nation has been asked to undergo on account
of the Indo-US nuclear-cooperation. No nation wanting to progress
would duplicate its facility- particularly those that cost a bomb! But
here we are - the agreement wishes that we spend a gigantic sum! The
above sum involved could have provided surplus energy to all & sundry
by conventional & non-conventional means, without the existence of
this nuclear deal.
r. Conceding to no quid-pro-quo. Conceding to no quid-pro-quo in as
far as sanctions/restrictions & autonomy of respective nuclear
institutes & agreements stand, ipso-facto implying a higher standing
of the US in the negotiating positions! Completely forgetting that
'ekla-chalo' worked for three decades & over, & it's the
non-governance & non-tasking of the DAE which may seem to warrant the
current deal. With this, the agreement throws the baby with the
bathwater. This has lead to the US holding India to standards 'holier
than though', as Braham Chelany put it in article of 22may in the
Asian Age, titled "Double standard: India not equal to China". Not
withstanding all the above, what is astonishing is the oblivious &
ignoramus nature displayed in going-in for this agreement, wherein
strategic compromises have been done that are almost suicidal &
patently uneconomical besides being self-demeaning & self-damaging.
s. Whose proposal was it anyay? What are the issues that were conceded
to by India during the recent meeting of the representative when it
was said: "were able to tie up a couple of loose ends concerning
things that the Indian government owed the United States in order to
really move forward on this deal." What is the draft plan & does it
exist with the Parliament of India, & why is India working or handouts
emanating from US & not generated by its own team. Why is the entire
process not being presented to the Parliament of India & is so
shrouded in secrecy that not only the parliament but the leaders of
various parties are clueless of the entire process & have grave
misgivings of the deal itself.
10. The only recommendation to the PM. It is possible that the GOI or
at least the PM will feel the remorse for his actions & may act in a
knee-jerk fashion by resigning. That he must but not before completing
the one & only savior-act. Please withdraw India from this deal fully
& unambiguously. You may consider resignation only thereafter.
Short resume:-


Commissioned in the Indian Navy, the officer rose to the rank of
Captain before seeking pre-mature retirement from the Service. During
his Service the Officer got the opportunity of working on some
significant aspects & projects for the Service, which included-Command
of an Air Squadron, Executive Officer of I.N.S. Ranvir (destroyer
class of ship), & establishing the Aviation Training Organization for
the Naval Air Arm. The officer did his Masters from the DSSC (Staff
College) Wellington & also undertook the Higher Air Command Course
(the penultimate course within the Services) at Secundrabad, before he
sought premature retirement.