CIVIL NUCLEAR DEAL WITH AMERICA

-It is said that American businessmen are so clever at negotiating table that if it serves their purpose right, they could talk the hind legs off a donkey. Two- term holder, President George. W. Bush, who has inked the civil nuclear deal with India, is not an ordinary American businessman but a brilliant politician. (Ditto for the President-elect Barack Hussein Obama). The studied silence of the Congress leaders in general and the Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh in particular after safe passage of the civil nuclear deal with America overcoming all the so-called hurdles-when otherwise it should have been hailed by them as an episode of crowning glory and remarkable achievement of the Congress-led U.P.A government in general and personally of the Doctor in particular, to swing votes in favour of the congress party in genral elections.Doubting Thomases in India wonder whether all is well with the deal. Their tribe is increasing by the day. They have the compelling reasons to believe that besides the very obvious many unsettling provisions in the deal which are inimical to our national interests and economy, there also exist some other shrouded in wraps
of mystery, which are being interpreted quite differently by America who, secured in a position of strength, may dictate terms and call the shots in this matter whenever such an occasion arises. “Why the deal is not being touted as the most remarkable achievement of the Doctor personally; a feather in his cap and a prized achievement of the Congress-led U.PA. Government?” they pertinently ask. It looks foreboding enough to an uninitiated layman, giving rise to the suspicion whether long- term Indian interests have been properly safeguarded or not? What if sometime in future for the worthy cause of controlling green house gas emissions, a cap is put on atomic power generation or something of the sort is done by the world community reducing our atomic reactors to junk material? Brushing aside all our contentions to the contrary, already the West is targeting and blaming us for the world-wide horrible phenomena of
serious climate change, global warming, brown cloud formation, carbon soot generation, emission of CO2 and other pollutants in the atmosphere, disturbing the ecological balance, serious pollution of natural resources, atmosphere and what not? And that too quite aggressively from a position of strength.
Further, are we in a sound position to affectively check quick-spread of atomic radiation in case of possible reactor leakages? Or has the American President outsmarted the Doctor by making the latter agreeable to purchase from America, the nuclear junk - and not the fuel- at a colossal cost which it has in abundance and is in a desperate hurry to dispose off as quickly as possible so
that it may raise enough funds to foot and finance its own ambitious programme of switching over to the power generation from the renewable, non-degradable, natural energy resources at a large scale without straining its own exchequer. (Perhaps he has sensed already that the world opinion will finally revolt against the atomic power generation in not that distant future). The President-elect Barack Hussein Obama has also whole-heartedly supported the deal and resolved to go along with it. Has the American cleverness found the Doctor an easy soft touch? His silence over the matter, even when otherwise he and his allies in the government are expected to go gaga over it and be very eloquent in extolling its virtues, to say the least, is astonishing.
If the deal is as good as it was being loudly proclaimed during its processing days, why his government is now shying away from the opportunity to show-case it as its prized accomplishment?