India
Make or Break Time for India?
Today my son, Navpreet, told me an interesting old news. It was a few months old statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - right after the Mumbai attacks to be exact, when he was being pressed by all and sundry to attack Pakistan.
Manmohan Singh had said interalia that the war with Pakistan would require around 10000 crores of Rupees and he was arranging for that sum to wage war against Pakistan. Needless to say, the economist in Manmohan Singh saved the day and India somehow avoided the needless war. read more »
A Dream Manifesto for Indian General Elections 2009
Dear, dear fellow countrymen!
No day could be more auspicious to share with you certain concernes regarding the coming elections which I and a few of my friends have in our minds keeping in view the future of our great country.
On the one hand, recalling our mastery in the software designing field in the last few years, our economic surge on the world scale, our winning the first-time gold and other medals at the last olympics and to top it all our taking the Hollywood world by storm today by winning 9 straight Oscars one is left in no doubt that the time of India to regain its ancient glory and be one of the leading countries of the world has arrived.
While on the other hand, from clouds of anarchy and instability in our neighbourhood made more monstrous by the possibility of nuclear weapons slipping into wrong hands leading even to the possibility of making the area an arena for a third world war, to the possibility of more and more Mumbai-like terrorist attacks as a consequence, to the almost uneducated, self-centered and criminal-like behaviour of most of our politicians sends a shiver down one's spine as to whether this country can remain even united not to talk of its becoming great.
Pak now has right to seek nuclear deal: Gilani
“Now that the civil nuclear deal with India has been finalised, Pakistan will have the right to ask for a similar deal because we do not want there to be any discrimination.” Said prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Yousaf Raza Gillani soon after the Indo-US nuclear deal was approved by the US Senate today. “We want there to be no discrimination. Pakistan will also strive for a nuclear deal and we think they will have to accommodate us”, He added.
The U.S.-India deal allows American businesses to sell nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and U.N. inspections at India’s civilian, but not military, nuclear plants. Asked if Pakistan would seek nuclear technology and know-how from China, Gilani said Beijing and Islamabad had a “unique relationship” that was a “time-tested and all-weather friendship”. China has always been helping Pakistan. Pakistan and China have finalized in August 2006 landmark accord on nuclear energy cooperation, under which Islamabad will acquire 6 Chinese nuclear reactors. The nuclear energy cooperation deal with China has brought great solace to Pakistan, as the United States is not willing to extend such cooperation to Pakistan. With Chinese cooperation, Pakistan would build six new nuclear reactors in next 10 years having capacity of 2,000 megawatts. This was part of Pakistan’s plan to increase the capacity of N-power generation to over 8,000 megawatts by 2025. China has already helped Pak build a nuclear reactor of 350 megawatts at Chashma and it was currently building one more at the same place with the same capacity.
