[Reader-list] Open letter to the prime minister of India toscrapthe Indo US nuclear Deal

radhikarajen at vsnl.net radhikarajen at vsnl.net
Thu Jul 3 18:58:09 IST 2008


Hi, 

 thapas has made very interesting observation about the nuke deal and its energy point of view.

    Simple answer to that is governance is about welfare and life of its citizens in the nation. Nuke deal is simply put an obligation of an individual to please his master and miss, for his survival in office. PM is all out with this one point agenda, not in the national interest. here his interest to be in office till the prince charming is ready mentally and physically to loot is the aim. So now he is in no position to say NO to Sonia who is,  if lost in election go back to her Home in Turin, recently refurbished by none other than a official ex chief of SIT staying in Italy as officer on special duty.If she is able to keep the regional satraps together in the guise of secular forces, for their ommissions commissions, she will annoint her son, is the idea she has. The hangers on and sycophants need the party to be in power as otherwise most of them are rootless wonders if it comes to elections as the fragile fragmented votebanks is most hostile to all the" national" parti
es, hence this drama.

  None of the political spectrum are really concerned about "national Interest" as such. If that be so, commercial dealsafter 123 agreement have to be noted that all have to be routed thru washington, with trillions of dollars worth plant and machinery for harvesting the n-energy.
  I do not know why this  N-deal is called a deal as it is for sale off of national interest.

 Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 10:38 pm
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Open letter to the prime minister of	India toscrapthe Indo US nuclear Deal
Cc: Sarai Reader List <reader-list at sarai.net>

> Radhika, Partha, Asit, and others,
> 
> Whether the nuclear deal is a sell-out or not, and if so, whether 
> this 
> sell-out is in India's interest, and what kind of interest that 
> may be, 
> are questions that can be debated. One may also argue over the 
> possibility of kickbacks for our national "leadership" - currently 
> Congress - being the real incentive. To me, however, these are 
> secondary 
> issues. The primary question is, whether nuclear power per se is 
> an 
> acceptable option or or not. (I will keep the weapons issue aside 
> in 
> this post.)
> 
> Before addressing the primary issue, let me talk about one of the 
> secondary ones - the question of economic benefit. Just as there 
> are 
> studies which show that nuclear power is economically viable, 
> there are 
> others which show that nuclear power plants are not what they are 
> touted 
> to be in that respect. Also, it can be argued that clean 
> technologies, 
> especially solar, could have been incomparably more viable by now 
> than 
> they are, if even a small fraction of the investment that has 
> been, and 
> is being made in nuclear R&D, had gone to them. At least one 
> reason why 
> this did not happen, I would think, is that there is no direct 
> military 
> use of solar power - unless, like Archimedes, one wants to burn up 
> the 
> adversary's tanks, ships, aircraft and missiles with focused sunlight.
> 
> As for the bad economics of nuclear power, please see these two 
> studies/papers. The first is by "tree-hugging" Greenpeace, but the 
> second is by a university policy research centre in the UK:
> 
> 	The economics of nuclear power
> 	Greenpeace
> 	Research report 2007
> 	http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/the-economics-of-nuclear-power.pdf
> 
> 	The economics of nuclear power: analysis of recent studies
> 	Steve Thomas
> 	(University of Greenwich)
> 	http://www.psiru.org/reports/2005-09-E-Nuclear.pdf
> 
> 
> While you are at it, you could also take a look at these, written 
> by an 
> IIT Kanpur alumnus who went on to earn a PhD in physics from 
> Boston 
> University:
> http://www.outlookindia.com/author.asp?name=M.V.+Ramana
> and
> Nuclear Power in India: Failed Past, Dubious Future
> M. V. Ramana
> http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/Ramana-NuclearPowerInIndia.pdf
> 
> 
> Now the primary question: the acceptability of nuclear power as 
> such. In 
> my opinion, it would be unacceptable even if its economics were 
> excellent, and the argument that it is a quick means of achieving 
> "development" does not change anything. There are too many risks, 
> some 
> of which are unknown. But some are known. I have quoted below from 
> two 
> articles published in major journals, which point this out. The 
> one by 
> Mangano and others, is about known cancer risks from nuclear power 
> plants in the USA and the West. I believe there have been similar 
> findings in India, too.
> 
> The other article - by Nusbaum - is about the risks involved in 
> disposing of the radioactive waste of power plants. If you read 
> the 
> entire article, you will see that Nusbaum is not against nuclear 
> power 
> plants as such, hence is not what some of you might call a tree-
> hugging 
> fundamentalist.
> 
> (If any of you want the entire articles, let me know and I will 
> email 
> them to you. I am not posting them in full, so as not to clutter 
> the list.)
> 
> Note that the risks discussed in these articles are related to 
> normal 
> operations with proper safety measures in place. I am not even 
> talking 
> about the effect of accidents, of which Chernobyl and Three-Mile 
> Island 
> have been the worst so far. There is plenty on the web on these 
> things too.
> 
> A very common argument is that present-day society is "risk 
> society", 
> and there are risks involved in any technology. What this argument 
> overlooks is that the risks involved in nuclear technology 
> (peaceful 
> ones) is of a completely different order from other energy 
> technologies, 
> such as hydrocarbons. And by the time the human race wakes up to 
> these 
> risks, it will be to late. The damage will have been done. This 
> has been 
> the case with hydrocarbons (global warming, lung diseases, etc.), 
> which 
> the developed industrial countries - none anywhere near the USA in 
> scale 
> or intensity - burned up for decades. Only, in the case of nuclear 
> power, the effects are perhaps incomparably more disastrous.
> 
> This leads us to another question: if all this is already known, 
> why do 
> policymakers in many countries (including India, USA, and recently 
> UK 
> after a lull) show such enthusiasm for nuclear power? In my 
> opinion, it 
> is the attraction for new technology at any cost, which is a 
> product of 
> the instrumental rationality that is typical of modernity. This 
> rationality makes these policymakers ignore "tree-hugging" values 
> and 
> accept the so-called gains, however short-term these may be, and 
> however 
> disputed the cost-benefit analyses on which the perception of 
> these 
> "gains" may be based.
> 
> Of course, coming back to Radhika, there may be a little cream to 
> skim 
> off, too!
> 
> Tapas
> 
> 
> --------------------------------
> Elevated childhood cancer incidence proximate to U.S. nuclear 
> power plants.
> Joseph J. Mangano, Janette Sherman, Carolyn Chang, Amie Dave, 
> Elyssa 
> Feinberg and Marina Frimer.
> Archives of Environmental Health 58.2 (Feb 2003): p74(9).
> 
> Abstract:
> 
> Numerous reports document elevated cancer rates among children 
> living 
> near nuclear facilities in various nations. Little research has 
> examined 
> U.S. rates near the nation's 103 operating reactors. This study 
> determined that cancer incidence for children < 10 yr of age who 
> live 
> within 30 mi (48 km) of each of 14 nuclear plants in the eastern 
> United 
> States (49 counties with a population > 16.8 million) exceeds the 
> national average. The excess 12.4% risk suggests that 1 in 9 
> cancers 
> among children who reside near nuclear reactors is linked to 
> radioactive 
> emissions. If cancer incidence in 5 western states is used as a 
> baseline, the ratio is closer to 1 in 5. Incidence is particularly 
> elevated for leukemia. Childhood cancer mortality exceeds the 
> national 
> average in 7 of the 14 study areas.
> 
> ------------------------------
> Radiation risk to future generations from long-lived radioactive 
> waste.Neil J. Nusbaum
> Journal of Community Health 31.5 (Oct 2006): p363(5).
> 
> ...
> 
> The physical characteristics and integrity of the storage facility 
> include features such as the overlying vegetation (2) that, in the 
> absence of ongoing human agricultural maintenance, are subject to 
> substantial variation with changes in conditions such as local 
> rainfall. 
> It remains highly speculative whether any arrangement for storage 
> which 
> we as a species can now devise would remain functional for ten 
> radioactive half lives, until the time when the decay process is 
> 99.9% 
> complete (even leaving aside any additional decay time for 
> radioactive 
> daughters). Indeed, for some of the longer-lived waste products, 
> even a 
> single half life of decay would require a time frame substantially 
> longer the age of the most ancient surviving human architectural 
> creations. While we can be confident of the shape of natural 
> radioactive 
> decay curves over geologic time, the time to failure for 
> individual 
> human artifacts is much less predictable. Accordingly, one must 
> harbor 
> some skepticism that a single repository in the Utah desert will 
> remain 
> intact for even a single half life of one of the important longer 
> lived 
> transuranuium isotopes (Plutonium-239, half life of 2.4 x 
> [10.sup.4] 
> years.). (3)
> 
> Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only one (4) has proven 
> able 
> to persist relatively intact for even a few millennia. The sole 
> survivor, the pyramids of Giza, was and is located in proximity to 
> a 
> major metropolis. This proximity has kept it under human 
> observation, 
> but also has made the structure subject to deterioration from 
> adjacent 
> human activity. It is not surprising perhaps that attention has 
> focused 
> on site placement distant from current population centers.
> 
> The potential effects of long lived radioactive waste storage also 
> involve consideration of the potential economic cost and safety 
> hazard 
> to those in the region, both the large numbers now living in Las 
> Vegas, 
> and the now far smaller number who live in closer physical 
> proximity to 
> the Yucca Mountain site. It seems speculative at best to assume 
> that any 
> of the desert terrain of the American West will remain sparsely 
> populated centuries into the future, merely because such climate 
> seems 
> inhospitable under present levels of technology and levels of 
> population 
> pressure. In the medium to long term, in addition, patterns of 
> climate 
> may also change as a consequence of phenomena such as the 
> increasing 
> worldwide burden of greenhouse gases, and could make current 
> desert 
> areas more desirable (either by change in their own local climate 
> for 
> the better, or by change for the worse in climate in other areas).
> 
> The recent efforts at emergency management of the Hurricane 
> Katrina 
> relief effort make it prudent to consider how efforts might be 
> coordinated to contain and control any degradation of the 
> integrity of a 
> national repository of long lived radioactive waste, in particular 
> such 
> as at Yucca Flats in Nevada.
> 
> ...
> 
> ---------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> radhikarajen at vsnl.net wrote:
> > Hi Partha,
> > 
> >     It is sincerly hoped that you have read the statement by the 
> nuclear scientists who have served India for years on the issue of 
> this N-deal, where in they clearly maintain that this deal amounts 
> to all commercial purchases being controlled by washington and 
> India would have to be at the mercy of washington even after the 
> NSG agrees to supply uranium, which exactly is objectionable. 
> Also, the party which ruled the nation forfifty years has all the 
> deals with kickbacks to the first family which histroy has 
> recorded well, be it PL 480 funds during the nehru and his mixed 
> economy, or Indira and her poisoned predecessor Shastriji, and 
> russian   deals or the latter version of mr. Clean with Bofors who 
> later had to pay the price but still his uncle Q got the freezed 
> funds thanks to his queen. 
> > 
> >    Moot point is nuclear energy is costliest and to set up 
> plants we need to spend billions for long period of 25 years with 
> lot many contracts and lots more kickbacks, hence the Pm is keen 
> for this deal with US, being Mr. Honest, he is out there to prove 
> how dishonest he is to the national interest with his personal 
> loyalty to the first family.!
> > 
> > Regards.
> > From: Partha Dasgupta <parthaekka at gmail.com>
> > Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 7:11 pm
> > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Open letter to the prime minister of 
> India	to scrapthe Indo US nuclear Deal
> > To: Asit asitreds <asitredsalute at gmail.com>
> > Cc: Sarai Reader List <reader-list at sarai.net>
> > 
> >> Hi Asit,
> >>
> >> Just for a moment, lets not wear the blinkers of "US 
> Imperialism" and
> >> look at what the scenario is and what the options are:
> >>
> >> 1.  India has already started the Nuclear Race with Pakistan a 
> >> long time back,
> >>     and with the distrust between the nations, would be 
> surprised if
> >> they'd stop
> >>     just because the current treaty is not signed. So what is this
> >> talk about India
> >>     being Nuclear Free?
> >>
> >> 2.  How does signing make India lose it's "hard earned 
> >> sovereignty"? On one hand
> >>      you talk of a nuclear race and on the other do not wish to 
> sign>> on the dotted line
> >>      to use nuclear bye products for peaceful purposes!
> >>
> >> 3.  We're already chock a block on Coal and other power 
> creators. With
> >> the water based
> >>     ones, the displacement will be high (not counting the arguments
> >> with Pakistan & Bangladesh)
> >>     and, of course, the recent posts on this list about the 
> water 
> >> in Kashmir.
> >>
> >> 4.  What sustainable method of power generation do you have in 
> >> mind -
> >> unless your contention
> >>     is that India should live without power and that power is only
> >> for cities. Sounds highly illogical
> >>     to me.
> >>
> >> In fact the whole message comes across as " they're the US, 
> therefore>> everything they do is evil" which is something I will 
> not accept 
> >> as a
> >> reason. Both Russia and China have Nuclear capability for both 
> power>> and warfare, yet because it is the US that has offered it, 
> the treaty
> >> has become a tool of "US Imperialism".
> >>
> >> Doesn't wash.
> >>
> >> Rgds, Partha
> >> ....................
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Asit asitreds 
> >> <asitredsalute at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>  Dear Friends
> >>>
> >>>                     Please see the following letter to the 
> prime 
> >> minister> to scrap the Indo-US nuclear deal, if you agree with 
> the 
> >> political content
> >>> please endorse the letter.And if possible please forward it to 
> >> others.>
> >>>
> >>> With Regards
> >>>
> >>> Asit
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINSTER OF INDIA TO SCRAP THE INDO 
> >> US NUCLEAR
> >>> DEAL
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> To
> >>>
> >>> Shri Manmohan Singh
> >>>
> >>> Prime Minister
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Dear Prime Minister,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> We the undersigned demand scrapping of the Indo-US Nuclear 
> Deal with
> >>> immediate effect. The content of the Deal which is currently being
> >>> negotiated between India and the US was the first laid out in 
> >> the joint
> >>> statement issued by the Prime Minister and the US President on 
> >> July 18, 2005
> >>> from Washington DC and further reiterated on March 2, 2006 in 
> >> another joint
> >>> statement by them issued from New Delhi. The signing of the 
> >> Henry Hyde Act
> >>> on December 18, 2006 is logical interference of the content of 
> >> the Act
> >>> legally making India a junior ally of the US Imperialism 
> >> confiscating> and  trunacating
> >>> our hard earned sovereignty.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> We therefore demand that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal be scrapped 
> >> given up with
> >>> immediate effect and the ongoing talks between IAEA should be 
> >> called off
> >>> immediately.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is patently anti-people, will make 
> >> India a
> >>> strategic ally of American Imperialism in South Asia to impose 
> >> its hegemony
> >>> over Asia. The Deal also negates the concrete achievements 
> >> gained by the
> >>> International and national peace movements for disarmament and 
> >> Nuclear-free
> >>> World. After the example of the ruthless genocide, devastation and
> >>> occupation of Iraq before us, we feel that the Indo-US Nuclear 
> >> Deal will
> >>> become an instrument for ruthlessly imposing the neo-liberal 
> >> economic agenda
> >>> and pliant regimes over the impoverished people of the Third 
> >> World and
> >>> further tightening the hold through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, 
> US 
> >> Imperialism> will have a firm grip over the governments of   
> the 
> >> independent> nation-states of India and Asia. This makes a 
> mockery 
> >> of the cherished
> >>> values of equal and democratic world order and the aspirations 
> >> of the
> >>> national liberation struggles including the whole spirit of 
> >> decolonization.>
> >>>
> >>> The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is an outrageous instrument of 
> >> recolonization of
> >>> India and Third World. The Deal, as and when comes through 
> will, 
> >> grievously> undermine the current global;  regime of nuclear 
> non-
> >> proliferation, as it is
> >>> meant to make an unique exception in case of India, in gross 
> >> violation of
> >>> underlying principles of the International peace, workers, 
> >> environment and
> >>> women's movements.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The fact that Pakistan has been brusquely refused a similar 
> deal 
> >> by the US
> >>> in spite of persistent clamouring, and Iran is being 
> >> demonstratively coerced
> >>> to desist from developing its own nuclear power production 
> >> allowed and
> >>> encouraged under article IV of the NPT which further brings 
> out 
> >> graphically> the abominable discriminatory nature of the Deal. 
> The 
> >> deal is likely to
> >>> trigger a stepped up vertical and horizontal proliferations 
> all 
> >> over Asia.
> >>> This goes against our commitment of Nuclear-free Asia and 
> World. 
> >> by enabling
> >>> India to import fuel natural or enriched Uranium, from abroad 
> >> the 'Deal'
> >>> would make it possible for India to use the indigenously 
> >> produced Uranium
> >>> exclusively for bomb making. This possible escalation in its 
> fissile>>> material production capacity, in all likelihood, it 
> will push 
> >> Pakistan> further to nuclearise even at great cost, and thereby 
> >> aggravate tensions and
> >>> accelerate the arms race in the region with horrifying 
> >> consequences. The
> >>> arms race will divert resources of the country away from 
> >> development so
> >>> desperately required by the toiling masses to overcome their 
> current>>> poverty.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> We totally reject the proposition that it will enhance India's 
> >> energy> security and, we categorically assert that nuclear 
> power 
> >> is prohibitively
> >>> costly., therefore the Deal will distort India's energy 
> options 
> >> by diverting
> >>> resource guzzling, and the intrinsically hazardous and potentially
> >>> catastrophic, nuclear power at the cost of eco-friendly and 
> many 
> >> times> financially cheaper renewable sources of energy.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> With the human development index of India and the Third World 
> >> miserably low,
> >>> we demand that instead of spending irrationally on nuclear power,
> >>> expenditures on in health, education, food security, rural and 
> urban>>> employment be enhanced.
> >>>
> >>> We want to remind you that India as the leader of the Non- 
> >> Aligned Movement
> >>> and as vocal participant in various international forums 
> >> including the UN,
> >>> has always committed itself for a Nuclear-free World and 
> >> abolition of the
> >>> existing nuclear weapons. In the spirit of the above we want 
> the 
> >> Government> of India to ban the entry of nuclear powered sub 
> >> marines of the US and other
> >>> major NATO countries. After six decades after of the Hiroshima 
> >> and Nagasaki
> >>> nuclear tragedies, we demand that immediate steps to be taken 
> >> for a
> >>> Nuclear-free Asia and the world.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The above Indo-US Nuclear Deal will further reinforce the 
> >> unequal strategic
> >>> relationship between the US and thereby would add momentum to 
> >> the US
> >>> imperialistic project for unfettered global dominance .We 
> reject any
> >>> ambitions of the Indian ruling classes to act as the a Big 
> >> Brother in South
> >>> Asia or to emerge as a global power basking in the reflected 
> >> glory of global
> >>> headman and goon. This will not only undermine India's 
> position 
> >> as a
> >>> founding and leading member of the Non- Aligned Movement but 
> >> will seriously
> >>> undermine prestige of NAM as a whole;
> >>>
> >>> of meekly surrendering to the US Imperialism defying the 
> democratic>>> aspirations of the toiling masses of the Third World 
> for a 
> >> Nuclear-free,
> >>> just and livable world.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Vijay Pratap(Convener Lokayan)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Babu Lal Sharma (Convenor, Global Gandhi Forum)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Rakesh Bhatt (Coordinator, SADED/CSDS)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Kiran Shaheen(Media and Social Activist)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Chandrika(Editor-Dakhal Duniya web magazine)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Prakash Kumar Ray (Film maker and Research Scholar/Film 
> >> Studies/School of
> >>> art & Aesthetic JNU)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Jeet Bhattacharya (Research Scholar, Film Studies, School of 
> art 
> >> & Aesthetic
> >>> JNU)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Rishika Mehershi (Research Scholar, Performing Arts, School of 
> >> art &
> >>> Aesthetic JNU)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Asit (Researcher and Social Activist)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Kumar Sameer(Social Activist)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Peeyush Pant ( Editor-Lok Samvad)
> >>> _________________________________________
> >>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
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> >>
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Partha Dasgupta
> >> +919811047132
> >> _________________________________________
> >> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> >> Critiques & Collaborations
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> > _________________________________________
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