India Succumbs to US Pressure, Accedes CSC Pact for Nuclear Liability

This article has appeared first on Technorati.com

As Obama visit to India is approaching, attempts to dilute nuclear damage liability bill passed by the Indian parliament are speeded up from the US side. India signed on October 27 an international treaty on civil nuclear liability under pressure from the US.

Domestic Law

Indian Parliament approved recently in August ‘nuclear damage liability bill’ with both ruling and opposition parties taking a unified stand supporting it. Though initial draft did not envisage any liability on suppliers of nuclear material and equipment, the final bill placed liability on suppliers too. However, there are several intermediary conditions to bring into effect the liability on the supplier countries or firms, while the bill places immediate liability of $320 million on the operator country i.e. India.

Imperial US

The US companies are averse to paying liabilities even though they supply substandard and damaged material and equipment due to which nuclear damages may occur. They fear that they will be forced to pay compensation as the US pressured BP to pay a whopping $32 billion for its oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. During deliberations between the ruling and opposition parties regarding passage of nuclear damage liability bill, the US companies lobbied heavily not to place any liability obligations on supplier countries, particularly the US and Japan. But the pressures did not work, as the Indian people were outraged against Bhopal gas leak judgment.

At the same time, the world witnessed two disastrous accidents on which the whole world has its attention, on what the outcome would be. One was the biggest ever oil spill in American history, in the offshore American west coast in Gulf of Mexico. The other one was that thirteen Chilean miners were not yet rescued from a collapsed mine whose videos and photos were published on every media on daily basis.

Germany’s Immigration Dilemma

Germany has been skeptical of its immigration policy recently as per the statement of the Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said, “Germany’s attempts to create multicultural society have failed.” One of her party colleagues said, “Multikulti is dead.” A board member of the German central bank Thilo Sarrazin went too far by saying, “Muslims have become burden to the German society.” He alleged that no immigrant group other than Muslims was so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime. Interestingly, he received widespread support after his statement, and his book on the same subject received good readership.

Germany Chancellor said that her government needed skilled people to keep the German economy’s growth pace faster. At the same time, she cautioned against unskilled people as they come to Germany for social benefits. While Angela’s invitation to skilled people was economically oriented, her rejection of unskilled people was socially oriented. Maybe the Chancellor has to understand that the economic prizes are always associated with social costs in unequally developed societies. Inviting economic fruits but denying social costs is something equal to rejecting that a coin has two sides.

Urgent Need

A leading German demographer Reiner Klinghoiz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, said Germany desperately needed immigrants and it should ease restrictions on immigration to provide the skilled workers, from engineers to computer experts to ensure the future economic success, as per Reuters. He informed that immigration to German had come to a virtual halt in the last two years.

Though Germany has three million unemployed, Mr Klinghoiz said Germany could not wait ten years for those on unemployment to become trained engineers. Klinghoiz said further that Germany had an annual influx of 200,000 immigrants but in the last two years had seen a net exodus of 15,000. Restrictions like language tests had stopped migrations from Turkey almost completely, he added. German Chamber of Industry and Commerce was quoted as saying Germany lacked about 400,000 skilled workers and it sought more immigration. (Here is a useful link)

Kudos to Arundhati, You are a Ray of Hope!

Article first published as Kudos to Arundhati, You are a Ray of Hope! on Technorati

Arundhati Roy deserves Kudos. She deserves accolades for her brave statement defying Indian state’s warning that she would face criminal charges, for her support to the national aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Arundhati Roy, a booker prizewinner, had been actively supporting social movements of the poor, ever since she came to limelight after winning booker prize in 1997.

Arundhati Roy and a leader of the Kashmir movement Syed Ali Shah Geelani were threatened with facing a case of sedition by the Delhi Police with support from Union Home Ministry. The legal opinion sought by the Union Home Minister favored registering a case against them under Section 124-A of Indian Penal Code that states, “whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the State” can be sentenced to five year rigorous imprisonment.

Arundhati Roy spoke at a seminar on “Azadi (independence) – The Only Way” along with S A S Geelani and pro-Maoist writer Varavara Rao held on October 21 in Delhi. She said in her speech, “Kashmir has never been part of India.” She was true when her statement was taken in terms of the wishes of the people in Kashmir.

If not, why Shaik Abdullah was kept in jail for 17 years for asking the Nehru Government to implement its promise of ‘plebiscite’? Why the people of Kashmir had continuously been on warpath against Indian Government? Why the police, para-military and military forces had continuously been stationed in Kashmir? Why hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri youth had been killed by the Army since the eruption of freedom struggle in 1989? Why even women including housewives, students and employees are coming to streets to shout “Go India, go back”?

Defense Ties May Deepen During Obama Visit to India

Article first published as Currency War to the Fore in G20 Ministerial Meeting on Blogcritics.

The US President Barack Obama is visiting India in second week of November. He is bringing several business people along with him while coming to India. Along with lobbying for contracts of billions of dollars, Mr. Obama has aimed at convincing India to be its strategic military partner in the region to secure its interests.

Relations

The relations between India and the US have only been speeded up since 1990 when USSR, the cold war alley for India, collapsed and India began opening up of its market to foreign MNCs, under the stewardship of the then Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The improvement of relations acquired faster pace in BJP’s coalition government except a brief period of sanctions regime after India’s 1998 nuclear tests under BJP rule, which was lifted in late 2001, maybe partly as a result of September 11 attacks. And that pace increased further in Congress’ coalition government.

Strategic Partnership

The Strategic Partnership Agreement was reached between India and the US in March 2000 while Bill Clinton was in office. The raising presence of China militarily as well as economically and somewhat, though not on full scale, economic resurgence of Russia necessitated then for the US to take the relations with India to the top level. The US needs a reliable partner that too a strategic partner, in the region to counterweight the increasingly assertive China.

After two devastating wars of Bush administration, this necessity was multiplied in terms of the interests of the US. America's new relationship with India has come as a broad security, political, technological, and economic arrangement on par with America's relationship with Europe or NATO. The US was even talking about sharing roles in joint space missions. The ex-president of the US, Bush and his first secretary of state, Collin Powel have once talked, back in 2004, of India’s common interests in securing their positions in sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Islands. India has already been patrolling with its navy.