The bulls are in complete charge as CPIM avoids drastic Action on Nuke Deal

The bulls are in complete charge as CPIM avoids drastic Action on Nuke Deal 
We anticipate only a huge debate on the reports of a growing rift

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

Saturday, September 29, 2007 1:06 AM

Asked about her feelings when she flew over India, Sunita Williams said, "It is just an incredible view. I feel proud that my father is from here. ...The first glimpse of earth from the space station brought tears to my eyes. It was just incredible, said Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams who spent a record 195 days at the international space station ...

We anticipate a huge debate on the reports of a growing rift, especially with the West Bengal government's recent overdrive to woo American investors," said economist Abhirup Sarkar of Kolkata's Indian Statistical Institute.

"They will definitely buy more time, because early polls will definitely hurt the left more and especially in West Bengal, where the communists are desperate to consolidate their position among traditional supporters," he said.

As India is toying with the idea of a Manned Space Mission, country's first cosmonaut Wing Cdr (retired) Rakesh Sharma has offered to join it.

The bulls are in complete charge of the markets taking it to yet another life time high. It was not only a strong day for the markets but a good end to a phenomenal week.Carrying on with the stand-off on the nuclear deal with the Congress, Left parties are expected to raise the specific issue of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguard talks at the next meeting of the UPA-Left committee on October 5. In a bid to brush aside differences in opinions over the need for nuclear energy and the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal amongst some of the senior leaders of the CPI (M), the party today said that any decision on the issue would be a unanimous one. Indicating that no immediate drastic move was being taken against the UPA Government on the Indo-US nuclear deal, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat today said the party was looking forward to the October five joint committee meeting. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury today iterated that both Nuke deal and Ram setu warranted importance and the party would hold discussion on these issues. : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today sought legal action against the Delhi-based FM radio station for allegedly airing derogatory remarks against the newly crowned Indian Idol Prashant Tamang.Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said Army was deployed in this North Bengal town, where people went on a rampage following an alleged remark by a Delhi FM channel about Indian Idol-3 Prashant Tamang. With a view to protect the city's landmark monument Victoria Memorial, Calcutta High Court today asked the West Bengal government to shift bus terminus from the Shahid Minar at Maidan within six months.

West Bengal will attract Rs.50 billion in investments in the energy sector in the next five years, West Bengal special secretary for power S.P. Gon Chaudhuri said here Friday.

A deafening silence on the civil nuclear deal during the last four days of India@60 celebrations was broken by the US, which said the 123 agreement must be completed in the life of the present Congress.

"We have changed laws in the US (when we) negotiated the 123 agreement. Both sides have agreed (to it) and it will move ahead," US Ambassador to India David Mulford said here yesterday, while underlining the importance of the deal to happen before the term of the Congress ends.

The deal, which aims to give India access to American nuclear fuel and equipment to help meet its soaring energy needs even though it has tested nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, requires to be approved by the US Congress, the IAEA and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

"Final steps have to be taken with IAEA and NSG. A final vote by the US Congress is also required... time is of the essence," Mulford said, addressing 'India@60: A New Age for Business" conference organized by the CII, USIBC and the Asia Society here.

The civil nuclear initiative with India will help the sub-continent nation in meeting its energy needs, he said, while describing as comprehensive the "456" relations or simply other areas of Indo-US relations.

Indian leaders, including External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, have been silent on the deal during the last four days of celebrations of India's 60th year of independence organized here by the CII and the Ministry of Tourism, barring a passing mention about the pact by India's Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen.

Sen, while addressing the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas New York 2007, mentioned that the Indo-US nuclear deal was an example of the strengthening ties between the two nations.

President Pratibha Patil today inaugurated the 150th anniversary celebrations of the YMCA. The nation today commemorated the birth centenary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.A united effort is needed for bringing a revolutionary change to uplift the weaker sections of the society, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil on Friday said as he joined leaders from across the political spectrum to pay tribute to Shaheed Bhagat Singh. New AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi will accompany Congress president Sonia Gandhi to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session on October 2 when Mahatma Gandhi's birthday will be formally declared as "International Day of Peace and Non-Violence".

Barely hours after extending the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme to the entire nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said more such schemes for under privileged people would be unveiled over the next few weeks. The Government today decided to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to all the remaining districts in the country. The southwest monsoon has been vigorous in east Uttar Pradesh and Konkan and Goa and subdued in Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Saurashtra and Kutch and Vidarbha. The Government today unveiled the National Policy on Petrochemicals with thrust on liberalising the feedstock supply for petro-chemical complexes, setting up of dedicated plastic parks and development of research and development, with an expected investment of over Rs 40,000 crore over the next five years.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said an estimated Rs 90,000 crore would be invested in the state's industrial sector to meet the unemployment problem.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today cautioned investors against high volatility in the stock markets, which extended gains for the ninth consecutive trading session today.

"My advice to investors is that they should do their homework. And if they cannot do their homework they should trust those (mutual funds) who do their home work. And for speculators, I have no advice," Chidambaram said.

India plans to spend $5 billion to extend a rural jobs scheme to cover the entire country from April 2008, two years ahead of schedule, in an apparent indication the government is gearing up for early elections.

Company will expand Net and phone services, and is seeking partners to bid on wireless spectrum, says news story. Top U.S. phone company AT&T is eyeing a wireless acquisition in India, a market it is focusing on as a key growth opportunity, The Wall Street Journal reported in...Ahead of the India-European Union (EU) summit on Nov 30, Daniele Smadja, the new envoy of the European Commission, Friday called for pushing negotiations on a broad-based trade and investment agreement between the two sides.

The Embassy of Japan in India today said it will extend grant assistance totaling 1,69,257 dollars (about Rs 67 lakhs) to two Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to support their projects for upgrading medical service for slums and constructing a centre for street children.

We must make room for a nuclear India
The Australian, Australia - 41 minutes ago
INDIA is, for once, an issue, albeit a small one, in an Australian election, while to some extent Australia is an issue in India. ...
Israel cloud on N-deal Calcutta Telegraph
123 deal must happen now: Mulford Hindu

The ongoing reforms, especially in cross-border trade issues, have secured India’s position 12 notches up on the global map, but in terms of the level of ease in doing business, the country is still far behind a number of other nations, a report by the World Bank and its private lending arm IFC said here on Wednesday.

In its report titled ‘Doing Business 2008’, the World Bank pointed out that while India had turned a better place for entrepreneurs in matters such as getting a loan, the overall process for a business start-up had become more difficult as compared to a year ago.Despite moving up in terms of overall ranking based on ten different parameters of business regulation, India still finds itself ranked at the bottom half, at 120th position among 178 economies across the world.
Incidentally, India has achieved significant improvement when it comes to getting credit and trading across the world, but its position has slipped in matters such as starting a business, employing workers, registering property and paying taxes.Gains in corn-seed share will continue through the end of the decade in Europe, South Africa, Argentina and India, St Louis-based Monsanto said on Thursday ...

India’s plans to streamline its huge but disorganized farming sector received a lift from Del Monte today. Del Monte Pacific signed a deal to buy a ...

India's Wipro Ltd said it has agreed to acquire Oki Techno Centre (Singapore) Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned unit of OKI focused on ...

India's Sensitive Index had the biggest quarterly gain since March 2006 as overseas investors bought more shares. The benchmark today rose to its eighth consecutive record, with ICICI Bank Ltd. and Tata Steel Ltd. contributing the most. The Indian rupee slipped from nine-and-a-half year highs on Friday, driven lower by suspected central bank intervention and some short covering by investors, though flows into the stock market limited losses, dealers said.The partially convertible rupee ended at 39.8450/8500 per dollar, slipping from Thursday's 39.71/72 close, when it hit a high of 39.62 in early trade -- its strongest since April 1998.India's benchmark share index rose to a record high for the eighth straight session on Friday, with global investors drawn by attractive returns offered by local stocks.Data shows that overseas investors pumped nearly $2.2 billion into Indian shares in the six days after last Tuesday's rate cut by the Federal Reserve.Overseas investors have bought a record $11.6 billion in Indian shares this year as companies raised a record $8.5 billion from initial public offerings. The Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark rate last week, easing liquidity concerns and helping the Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia- Pacific Index post a fifth quarterly advance, the longest rally since 1999.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex added 140.54, or 0.82 percent, to 17,291.10. The S&P/CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange gained 20.80, or 0.42 percent, to 5,021.35. Nifty futures for September delivery gained 29.35 points to 5,038.

Govt, private sector team up to promote brand India
Sify, India - 4 hours ago
New York: India's private and government sectors came together for the first time for the Incredible India@60 campaign here to showcase the country ...

India cool to Iran talks with Pak on LNG pipeline project
Times of India, India - 19 hours ago
NEW DELHI: India remains unfazed by the latest round of meetings Iran had with Pakistan on September 24 to discuss the proposed $7.4 billion tri-nation ...

FACT OR ALARMIST FICTION?

Ramadoss draws IT ire for 'slur' on BPO lifestyle
ibnlive.com

Do BPO workers in India actually lead a hazardous lifestyle as to drop dead on their desks, suffering heart attacks? Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss definitely thinks so. "It's shocking to see 22-year-olds dropping dead on their desks," Ramadoss said on Wednesday. He claimed mental disorders, cardio-vascular diseases and divorce rates among call centre employees are tremendously high. Nasscom described these remarks as alarmist statements that paint a negative image of BPO employees. [0616 hrs IST]

Ash adds spices to Incredible India @ 60 in NY
Prarthna Gahilote / CNN-IBN
New York: In his over 80 trips to India in the last 30 years, Steve McCurry has fallen in love with everything Indian. The culture, the monuments, the colours in Rajasthan and even Bollywood. And that's why when he chose 35 pictures for the Incredible India @ 60 celebrations in New York Aishwarya Rai made it to the exhibition.

not bad to have some fantacy experience with Virtual World!
And see the brand effect in reality!

Vanishing Cos that siphoned Rs 10,000 cr of investor money
114 companies have officially been named Vanishing Companies by Govt.
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/vanishing-cos-that-siphoned-rs-10000-cr-of-investor-money/49534-3.html

India's consumer price index rose 7.26 percent in August from a year earlier, higher than July's annual rise of 6.45 percent mainly ...

New York: While activists in India have criticised beverage companies for excessive ground water usage, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo insist that the beverage ...

India's fiscal deficit in the April-August period stood at 1.03 trillion rupees ($26 billion), or 68.5 percent of the full-year target, the government said in a statement on Friday.On the other hand,The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is developing a India-specific navigation system in the lines of the Global Positioning System (GPS) at an investment of Rs 1600 crore.

Close on the heels of a demand from the new AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today decided to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to all the districts of the country from April 1, 2008.

Announcing this at a press conference today, Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said that from April next year, 265 more districts would fall under the ambit of the livelihood guarantee programme. At present, NREGA is operational in 330 districts of the country, with 200 districts covered from the first phase that was inaugurated in February 2006. From April this year, an additional 130 districts were added under the Act.

"The plan to extend the programme countrywide was there for some time, and the ministry was working upon it. Just at the same time Rahul Gandhi asked for the same which came as a major support for the plan," Raghuvansh Singh said.

Meanwhile, party veteran Jyoti Basu declined to make any comment.The crucial politburo meeting was being held in the backdrop of the ongoing tussle between the UPA government and the Left parties over the nuke deal.The Politburo meeting will be followed by three-day Central Committee meeting from Saturday.They say the deal compromises India's sovereignty and seeks to influence New Delhi's independent foreign policy. The left parties and the government formed a panel last month to resolve the row and it has met twice so far but made little progress.State leaders have in recent days voiced their support for American investment as well as the need for U.S. help to build a nuclear power plant in the province.These differences are expected to come to the fore at the Kolkata conference and the CPI(M) top brass would try to put a lid on the rift and forge a united front, analysts said.

The communist deliberations in their eastern stronghold of Kolkata assumes added importance as New Delhi faces an informal end-October deadline to push the next steps needed to clinch the deal, something the left parties have warned against.Failure by the two sides to find a way out could force general elections being called early next year instead of early 2009 when they are due, some government leaders have said, as Singh's coalition is unwilling to dump the nuclear deal.While that has not deterred communist leaders in New Delhi from pushing the crisis to the brink, their counterparts in West Bengal are not seen keen to face early elections.

The Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPI-M) would take a unanimous decision on its stand on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, a member of the party's politburo said. India's main communist party begins a meeting of top leaders on Friday to plan its strategy in a stand-off with the government over a controversial nuclear energy pact with the United States.The communists, who shore up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government, have opposed the landmark agreement and threatened to end their support, triggering the country's worst political crisis in more than three years.Although leaders on both sides have privately talked about a possible compromise, there has been no indication yet that one is imminent ahead of a crucial Oct. 5 meeting of a joint panel formed to resolve the crisis.The meeting was attended by CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat, party veteran Jyoti Basu and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee among others.Besides the leaders mentioned above, others attending it Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, R Umanath, K Vardarajan, B V Raghavulu, S R Pillai, Biman Bose and Brinda Karat.

''Everything has been discussed and I am sure we will take a unanimous decision'', M K Pandhe said, after a crucial politburo meeting on Friday.When asked whether CPI-M would withdraw support from the UPA government if it went ahead with operationalising the deal, Pandhe said: ''I cannot say anything now.''

"We will be discussing the nuclear issue and the government's policy, the whole political situation in the country and then announce the outcome," Prakash Karat, chief of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), told Reuters ahead of the four-day meeting.

The nuclear pact, first agreed in principle in 2005, aims to help India meet its soaring energy needs by giving it access to U.S. fuel and reactors even though New Delhi has tested nuclear weapons and not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

While the two governments and supporters of the deal have called it historic, saying it symbolises the growing strategic friendship between India and the United States, the communists have rejected it.

Chidanand Rajghatta reports from Washington for Times of India:

Top Indian cabinet ministers met their U.S counterparts here on Wednesday to assure them about New Delhi's commitment to advancing bilateral relations and agreements in the first high-level interaction between the two sides in several months, amid mounting concerns that domestic political pressures are undermining milestones reached between the two countries.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session for talks that officials said covered a "wide range of issues," including obviously the nuclear deal.

Mukherjee is said to have used the opportunity to assure the U.S side of the Indian government's commitment to the nuclear deal in the face of the intense political scrutiny it is receiving in India. Washington is getting increasingly antsy about the roadblocks the deal has run into in India and Rice has expressed concern about the clock running out.

Mukherjee was not the only one offering assurance that India's vigorous democratic process was more about checks and balances than obstruction.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath were both in the U.S this week pledging further reforms, including opening up of the retail sector that is causing heartburn in the Indian heartland.

Chidambaram offset assurances on the retail front by broadly hinting that the government may try and take some measures to cushion the impact of the rising rupee that has driven export-oriented Indian companies, including the IT sector, to despair, while delighting American manufacturers who see greater export opportunity on account of a weakening dollar.

But there is concern in Washington that New Delhi is taking its eyes of the ball on various key issues as the UPA government is buffeted by political winds and India seems to be entering an election mode ahead of schedule. The Bush administration itself, weighed down by the Iraq albatross, is struggling to keep other major foreign policy issues in focus and the Rice-Mukherjee engagement offered a chance for the two sides to review progress on the nuclear deal and other key issues between the two sides.

Officials on both sides were not immediately available to elaborate precisely on any progress made, and although there was much speechifying on all sides (Rice and Mukherjee delivered speeches on Washington on Thursday on climate change), there was lack of clarity on the next steps in the nuclear deal (a major American concern) and the fate of the roaring rupee (a major Indian concern).

It was not all concessions from India.

In Washington, Mukherjee told a meeting of major economies on climate change and energy security convened by the U.S that India’s targeted growth of 8-10 per cent annual in the coming decades means it "cannot compromise" on the need to drive up energy consumption. However, he assured delegates that even as India pursues economic growth, its per-capita green house gas emissions will not increase beyond those of the industrialized countries, a promise first articulated by the prime minister in Germany.

"We have a very small individual carbon footprint with per-capita CO2 emissions being just about a quarter of the world's average," Mukherjee insisted. "However, our willingness to engage in finding practical, pragmatic solutions, and cooperating in advanced clean technologies for the benefit of entire humankind are second to none."

BEYOND THE VEIL
- India is ignoring the cost and polluting capacity of nuclear power
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra

While ‘the Mechanism’ is seemingly at work, the prime minister has struck a lyrical note. He is in raptures over the nuclear renaissance that is a-coming; he would dearly love his countrymen to partake of its fruits.

Is it not however an extraordinary sort of renaissance the prime minister is talking of? The mother country for both fundamental and applied nuclear research is the United States of America. Those at the helm of affairs in that country are desperately anxious to discover a major alternative source of energy, since the doings of Osama bin Laden and Hugo Chavez have cast a shadow on their hitherto held assumption of an unending supply of oil. And yet, hardly any enthusiasm is discernible in the US for making nuclear energy the centrepiece of energy expansion programmes. On the contrary, for more than a decade now, there is a total moratorium on setting up new nuclear power plants there. Even with its best endeavours, the American nuclear lobby has failed to convince either economists or the lay public that the unit cost of nuclear power generation compares favourably with that of power generated from thermal or hydroelelectric sources. While controversy over the economic issue was still raging, environmental groups arrived on the scene, effectively cooking the goose for votaries of nuclear power. The frenzy of protests against the perils of nationwide nuclear pollution reached fever pitch; politicians got the message.

Robert Bruce-like characters nonetheless continue to proliferate. Besides, the American military-industrial complex has its own economic calculations to ponder. Having already invested hundreds of billions of dollars in setting up technological capability to build nuclear power plants, it is most keen to find a solution to the problem of surplus capacity in nuclear power-plant building brought about by the large-scale domestic disenchantment with nuclear power. The plan it has worked out neatly dovetails into official American global strategy. The enforcement of nuclear non-proliferation is a handy weapon to maintain American nuclear hegemony. But why not supplement that policy with a further stratagem? Vulnerable countries around the world could be offered, under strictest safeguards, driblets of nuclear fuel and technology for civilian use. In return, these countries could be cajoled to agree, either tacitly or openly, to submerge their separate, sovereign identities into the American imperium.

Several birds are being sought to be killed with one stone. The retention of the US’s near-monopoly over nuclear power is to be accompanied by a steady widening of the country’s colonial ambit. The military-industrial complex will offload some of its excess capacity in the nuclear power plant sector. The strategy fits in with the objective underlying a model of global economic optimum worked out by a group of neo-liberal American economists. The global economy, the model claims, is the net gainer if pollution-creating industries, such as nuclear power plants, are shifted out of the rich countries and relocated in poor underdeveloped lands; since the productivity of an average citizen in a poor country is way below that of an average citizen in prosperous countries, such a shift optimizes global economic welfare. Whether citizens of poor countries might have a point of view in the matter is a query considered too silly to respond to.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070928/asp/opinion/story_8364874.asp

IIM C-ROREPATIS: The placement season is four months away and five students from IIM-C are already crorepatis.

Crorepati saga at IIM-C, 5 get offers over Rs 1 cr

Priyanka Ghosh / CNN-IBN

One of the highlights of Incredible India is the Indian Institutes of Management. Take IIM Calcutta for instance — the crorepati saga continues in the institute. Pre-placement data indicate the number of offers with Rs 1 crore salaries has already exceeded last year's record.
http://www.ibnlive.com/business/index.html

India should try and shift farmers to non-farm jobs if it wants to battle poverty successfully, the country’s icon for agricultural research has said.

M.S. Swaminathan, considered the pioneer of the Green Revolution, called for a national effort to promote skilled non-farm employment in villages, citing China’s success in moving 100 million people from farm to non-farm jobs since the 1980s.

"We need a large non-farm initiative. People could move out of the poverty trap if there is value addition to their skills and labour," Swaminathan told the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research on its foundation day yesterday.

He called on the CSIR to deploy some of its workforce to research the subject.

Swaminathan’s views are similar to those of Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who has stressed the need for industrialisation to combat poverty in villages. The scientist heads the Bengal government’s Agriculture Commission, which studies how to increase soil fertility and productivity.

Swaminathan told the CSIR that the rural, non-farm livelihood initiative may be started in the 31 districts the government has identified as agrarian hotspots because of the high numbers of farmer suicides there.

He added that an effort by the CSIR in the early ’70s to bridge the rural-urban divide had fallen short of expectations because there was little synergy at the time among the fields of agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and industrial technologies.

In contrast, a programme begun by the Chinese Academy of Sciences about a quarter century ago had helped shift more than 100 million rural men and women in that country from farm to non-farm employment in seven years.

He said the strategy for rural prosperity in China included concurrent attention to on-farm and non-farm employment, which led to township and village enterprises.

"This was the beginning of the economic revolution in China. China’s ability to become a global outsourcing hub for manufactured products is largely due to the emergence of the township and village enterprises."

Swaminathan, a plant geneticist who was director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research during the 1970s, said the CSIR had an array of technologies relating to post-harvest processing and value addition, as well as biomass utilisation. These could be used to generate non-farm job opportunities.
Poll-wary CPM looks to buy time on nuke deal
BISWAJIT ROY writes in The Telegraph Kolkata, published today:

The CPM politburo meeting tomorrow, followed by its three-day central committee session, is likely to try and find a way to buy time on the nuclear deal till the party is ready for elections.

The party will also discuss how to dissociate from the UPA government, if it goes ahead with the deal, while not bringing it down and forcing a mid-term poll.

According to central committee members, the CPM units in Left-ruled Bengal and Kerala are not ready for elections. "Moreover, the whole party is busy in organisational conferences which will be completed in the party congress in March. We can’t hold the congress earlier," a committee member from Bengal said.

If elections are inevitable, it would be better to hold them "after the panchayat polls here in May", he added.

Officially, though, the party still holds that the ball is in the Congress’s court. "We don’t want to bring down the government. It’s up to the government to decide whether they want to continue or not,’’ politburo member S.R. Pillai said.

While the Bengal comrades led by Jyoti Basu are likely to push for a longer rope to the Congress than Prakash Karat is ready to give, the general secretary’s supporters here point out that he never called for snap polls.

Central committee members said the party could ask for a national law to govern international treaties — so that all treaties have to be ratified by Parliament.

"The government says parliamentary ratification of international treaties is not mandatory under the Constitution. But Article 253 of the Constitution allows room for discussion on such treaties in Parliament. The question is whether the government has the political will to do so,’’ said CPM central secretariat member Nilotpal Basu.

The CPM leader added that the party would ask "the government to enact a law on treaties… to ensure legislative scrutiny of international agreements".

Party leaders said they would not ask for the deal to be scrapped but try to delay it by asking the government to extract more "safeguards" from the US.

"The government must ask the US to amend its atomic energy laws to ensure uninterrupted N-fuel supply and unhindered reprocessing and enrichment rights as it had given to France and Japan,’’ Basu said.

CPM state secretary and politburo member Biman Bose echoed him. "We want adequate safeguards in the nuclear deal so that Indian sovereignty is not compromised."

The party might ask the Centre to amend the Indian Atomic Energy Act to ensure such safeguards. "The government can’t operationalise the 123 Agreement without amending our act since it will have to make room for the US and other foreign private sector nuclear energy companies. It needs our support to pass such amendment in Parliament. So, we will ask it to incorporate safeguards against the impact of the Hyde Act,’’ said central committee member Mohammad Salim.

But Basu felt that would not "insulate us from American policy". "We cannot be party to a deal with America that goes against the people’s mandate,’’ he added.

Even if the CPM withdraws support, it will not topple the Manmohan Singh government and would want it to continue as a minority regime like P.V. Narasimha Rao’s, sources said.

"The day we decide to snap ties, we will inform the President. But we won’t go for any no-confidence motion in Parliament. It will be left to the BJP to bring down the government on the nuclear issue, which it would not want to, given the previous NDA government’s role in the Indo-US deal," a central committee member said.

But what if BJP does try to bring down the government? "We hope Mayavati and others would save the Congress," he said, adding the Left would never be seen voting with the BJP in Parliament.

Scam hits Sardar Sarovar project

NDTV Correspondent
Friday, September 28, 2007 (Bhopal)
The Sardar Sarovar project has come under the shadow of a scam that promises to be huge to the tune of hundreds of crores.