Neither the Indo-US deal nor the proposed NSG waiver binds India in a multilateral commitment not to test. India will continue to have its sovereign right to test.

Article 14 of the 123 Agreement lays down the procedure for cessation of cooperation in case India carries out a test. It will not be automatic but will involve consultations and consideration whether the Indian test was due to changed security environment or similar action by other powers.

Therefore, there is an implied acceptance that there may be circumstances in which India may be justified to test. This is the only international treaty that recognises contingent possibilities of India testing.

The US document makes it clear that the US will cease all supply of fuel in case of a test. The opponents to the deal point out that this will come in the way of India having assured fuel supplies. Surely, India will not think of testing without building up a strategic fuel reserve.

The strategic fuel reserve will not necessarily be built on US supplies only. Once the NSG waiver is obtained, India will be in a position to enter into commerce with other countries which are in a position to supply fuel.

It is highlighted that the State Department document points out that the US administration is bound by the Hyde Act. It will be bound by the Hyde Act till the Congress approves the 123 Agreement which will supercede the provisions of the Act as it is an international treaty and also it is passed later.

The US Supreme court has held that international treaties override local laws. It is also a well known principle in law that if there is a contradiction between an earlier and later laws, the later law will prevail. So when the US Congress passes the 123 Agreement that will supercede the Hyde Act

The third issue is the assertion in the State Department replies that the US has no plans to transfer to India sophisticated enrichment and reprocessing technologies. The US does not transfer such technologies to any country in the world, including its closest allies.

But the 123 Agreement leaves a possibility of a future amendment for the purpose. However, India hopes that with the NSG waiver, the country will be able to get such technologies from other nuclear powers.

The US, Russia and the UK are the framers of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and founders of the London Suppliers Club, the predecessor of the NSG. Today those powers are moving to incorporate India in the non-proliferation regime to make it near universal leaving only Pakistan out of it.

All but three nations of the world are members of the NPT. The three stay-outs are Israel, India and Pakistan. Israel is not interested in civil nuclear commerce. Pakistan, as President Gerorge W. Bush pointed out, has a different history as a proliferator.

India is a country with advanced nuclear technology and has an impeccable non-proliferation record. Therefore, the major nuclear powers are interested in making India a stakeholder in the near universal non-proliferation regime, though they cannot admit India as a weapon power in the NPT without amending the Treaty. They are afraid of amending the Treaty lest the whole treaty should unravel. Therefore, this device of unique waiver for India!

The Left as well as those still conditioned by the Cold War are unable to come to terms with the radical changes in the international system. They are still looking upon India as a victim of US pressure and strategic manipulation.

In today's world, India has considerable leverage and it is respected in the international community.

Dear Friends,

As you may be aware a lot of heat has been generated yesterday by a letter leaked to the press in the US, which states the american intension of cutting off cooperation with India on this deal in the event of a test being conducted.

The BJP and the Left parties are predictably baying for the PMs blood again. It is a matter of common sence that any conduct of a nuclear test by any country is not taken lightly bythe international community these days. Even France was severely condemned for their such test. Further the PM had himself said that it is Indias sovereign right to conduct a test and it is USAs right to react to it. However nowhere in the 123 agreement have we commited to not conducting a test.

It may further be noted that in the future the need to conduct tests will also be reduced as simulated tests are fast replacing the conventional ones and all data and information is obtainable from such simulated tests.

Lastly it is not only the US that Inda can conduct buisness when the treaty becomes operational. We can do so with any of the 45 countries in this group, including our old ally Russia.

While I was mullingover these thots and reading the views of various experts in the matter i stumbled upon a article published in todays Tribune, a newspaper published from Chandigarh. I am reproducing here its contents verbatim for the perusal of all MS members:

News Analysis
By K. Subrahmanyam
India can meet all challenges of 123 pact

Congressman Howard Berman, a known opponent of Indo-US nuclear deal and Chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee has released the answers furnished by the State Department to his predecessor Tom Lantos on the questionnaire Lantos had sent to the State Department.

The reply was sent in January 2008. Though it was not a classified document, the recipient was asked to keep it confidential in view of the sensitive nature of the replies. Obviously, this was a reference to the debate in India on the Indo-US nuclear deal and the strong emotions it had generated.

Now Berman has deliberately released it in the hope it will complicate the issue at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting in Vienna on September 4 and 5.

As expected by the opponents of the deal in the US, the release of the letter has generated the expected reactions in India from the BJP leadership and the Left. Demands have been made for a special session of Parliament and even for the resignation of the government on moral grounds.

The charge is that the government, particularly the Prime Minister, misled the House. But for an impartial and apolitical observer, such a charge appears totally untenable.

It is said that the State Department document makes it clear that in case of India conducting a test, the US will cease all nuclear cooperation and demand to take back its equipment and fuel. This is held as inhibiting India's right to test. No. It does not take away India's right to test which is inherent in India's sovereignty.

But there will be consequences if India conducts a test as there were in 1998. Any future Prime Minister who wants to test will take into account all possible consequences before ordering it.

Results in the Khooshi Khooshi category of the Rain Mela – Conducted by Kweldebs and category hosted by Doveeye.

Friends, as the rains have not gone away yet, I’m sure you would all remember the “Rain Mela” too sponsored by Kweldebs and co-hosted by many other members. The ribbon for this particular category was cut by one of our youngest members on MS, Me. No not ‘me’ as in Lalit, ‘Me’ as in doveeye. So its only appropriate that one of the oldest ones becomes the judge here. So since Raja was unavailable, I had to do the honours.

Rains always come with a lot of attached emotion. They bring out the most basic of our desires as also cause a certain amount of melonchaly. Not to forget that they almost always evoke the romantic feelings in us. You might have witnessed the same in many parks and gardens to put it mildly.

Now many people expressed their feelings here and told about all the good and the khooshi that the rains bring. Just to sum up some of the excellent thoughts,

1. Doveeye herself said it brings the hope of a fresh beginning. How well said. Its as if all the old problems and troubles get washed away by this GOD sent water from the skies and we can start our life afresh. Excellent thoughts, far deeper in meaning than I could have expected from someone so young. But then such is the effect of the rains I guess !

2. Darebail2008 – Umesh too has given some interesting observations. Yes hogging hot dosas and pakodas appeal a lot on the wet days.

3. Fenil too has brought out interesting observations. His love for trekking specially during the wet weather was expressed. But I must warn him to be very careful specially while trekking in the hills as the soil tends to get loose and extra precaution needs to be taken to avoid slipping. And yes who dosent like taking chutti from college/school/office. Count us in too Fenil, whatever age we may be, theres nothing like a unannounced chutti !

4. Swan – Swati has given one really unique khushi. Getting wet completely. Yeah…I remember that feeling. Down to your bones wet. Oh we used to do that in school. Just let the rain drench you, totally bindaas. Thank you Swati for giving me that feeling again. Although I usually used to innumerably fall ill after such an encounter, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

However the person who wins this category with his very philosophical thoughts on the effects of the rains is Monoo-Manjit. He says that the rains mesmerize him and remind him that nothing lasts forever so give it the best before it slips away out of your grasp. Wow, what a thought. Reminded me of the fact that life really is moving very fast and we should enjoy and live up every moment of it. Do something worthwhile. Amazing thought really.

Secondly he says, that it washes away all the colours that we put on ourselves to please other people. Another great thought. One that requires deep thinking to understand fully. Just as at the physical level it washes our body, the same way at some other level it also washes away all the pretence, the fake appearances and brings out the real person in us. Lovely lovely really.

I don’t know what the gifts are going to be, but whatever they are I think Manjit totally deserves them ! I too shall gift him something ( whatever I can afford, as I neither spam nor write much!) from the little points that I have left. Good work Manjit, I am touched . Congratulations on winning this one !!

Deh Siva Var Mohe Eha, Shubh Karman te Kabhun na Taru,

Na Daron ar So Jab Jai Laron, Nishchay Kar Apne Jeet karon,

Aaru Sikh Hon Apne he Man ko, eh Lalach Hun Gun Toh Uchron,

Jab Aav ki Avadh Nidhan Baneh, At He Ran me Tab jujh Marun.

A week or so back our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh opened his speech in the Parliament house on the all important trust vote with these verses. A usually docile and shy person appeared confident and dominating that day. He had a great conviction and a sense of purpose in his voice when he spoke, and he was greeted with the thumping of desks from the treasury benches. Whereas I never doubted the capability and the caliber of our Prime Minister, his entire conduct before and during the trust vote really impressed me. He was a man with a mission and was not willing to compromise with anyone coming in his way of executing the deed.

His closing speech on the next day itself was a great piece of writing. He literally took the opposition apart with a scathing attack on their leader, a man of the stature of Mr. L.K. Advani. Unfortunately he was never allowed to speak that speech in the house, but just by reading the text on the news channels and the net, one could make out the determination and clarity of his thought.

Dr. Manmohan Singh has truly emerged a much stronger man, a strategist and thinking PM with a vision and mission for his beloved country.

Now coming back to the verses that he recited when he opened the debate in the Parliament, I must admit that I had heard them numerous times earlier. Being a Punjabi and having lived in Chandigarh for long and also having visited Gurudwaras and heard kirtan, I was not a stranger to these lines. But when our PM spoke them, they gave me goose bumps. Such was the determination in his voice. I was obviously helped by the fact that I knew clearly the meaning of these lines and their importance in Sikh history.

But for the benefit of those who do not understand them, I gave a very simplified translation and explanation.

Wikipedia gives the following as an official translation:

O Lord grant me this boon, that I may never avoid doing a good deed.
Never shall I fear the enemy when I go into the battlefield and always ensure my victory.
That I may teach myself this greed alone, to learn only Thy praises.
And when the last days of my life come, I may die in the might of the battlefield.

These lines were written and recited by the 10th Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh. As a warrior and a fighter for truth, the Guru is praying to the almighty and asking for a blessing. The blessing is not about wealth, health or prosperity as any mortal man would ask. It is not even for victory that any solider would pray for. The great Guru only prays that he should be blessed with such determination that he may never be deterred from doing a good deed, whatever be the consequences of the same. He also prays that he should never have fear when he goes into the battle field however powerful an enemy he is faced with. And that his own determination may help him to win.

He further says that being a Sikh (meant as solider here) itself in the service of the Lord may be enough enticement for him. Meaning that he should not ever want anything else, after converting to a solider for a just cause.

And then, when there is no other way left and death is inevitable, may I die fighting in the battlefield…

Its Hillarious and true, Doveye wants to sell her MouthShut.com ! Rather drastic wouldent you say !




doveye wants to sell her MouthShut.comContact Mea_gopidas wants to sell his Sony Ericsson k510iContact Mekishorekumarinfo wants to sell his Sony Ericcson W890iContact Meashish.vairale wants to sell his Hero Honda SplendorContact Mecame0 wants to sell his Hero Honda AmbitionContact Me

I first stumbled upon Mouthshut while searching for information on Google. I found the site interesting. The reviews were good, very informative and straight from the mouth of the persons who had experienced it and gone through the pain. I soon became a regular reader on the products that I would be procuring soon or that interested me generally.

Very soon I realized that some of the writers here had exceptional writing skills and their reviews were worth reading just for the sheer pleasure to be derived from it. Their personality reflected in their writings. Some would be full of pain and frustration that they faced, some full of humor and wit. So I started reading the reviews of items that I would not even be interested in. Rating and giving comments was a bonus. When u comment on a review and the person replies, you get a sense of having connected with that person. Doing this several times you feel you have made a friend. Amazing and unique site this was.

Then one day someone included me in his or her trusted circle. Though the site never clarified anywhere the significance of this circle, it just made me feel good, and soon enough I too included him in my trusted circle. That gentleman never logged in again but thus started the saga of my trust in MS.

Then came a day when I wrote my first review. I thought for so many days what should I write on. And the very shy person that I have always been, expressing myself was never easy. So I choose the topic that is the closest to my heart and on which I have a very good command. What else could it be other than “Exercise”. And then I progressed to health foods, and soon without realizing I started loving to write.

When the gifts and the diaries were introduced MS moved one level up. Again I could hardly ever see myself sending someone a gift. But then again things change and there’s hardly a gift that i have not exchanged here. The hugs, juices, chocolates, earrings, cakes, kisses, love balloons..

And today when I came here what do I see- MS has changed once again. For Good or for Worse only time will tell, but it sure is moving more and more towards being a social networking site. The focus on Hot Profiles is clearly visible. In summation I will just say that today MS looks like having the features and functionality of a combination of site categories while retaining its original “Product Review” character. You can now see a glimpse of Bazee/Ebay (for sale products), Kijiji (local community needs), Orkut (social networking), etc

So friends all I can say now is enjoy the new format!

And Congratulations to you Faisal and your team !

Friends, there’s a popular e-mail story doing the rounds on the forwards circuit these days by the title of “The 99 Club”. I’m not going to reproduce the same here as most of you may have read it already but I do want to use it as a preamble to what I have to explain later in my diary post. I will therefore, recount it here for the benefit of those who haven’t read it in as small a jist as I can.  

In the palaces of a king, there was once a lowly servant who always seemed to be very happy. He would go around the place doing his chores of cleaning the floors or dusting the windows with a song on his lips and a bounce in his step. The King could never understand the logic and reasoning of his happiness and was in a way jealous of that servant. So he consulted his wisest advisors and explained to them his predicament. They advised him only one thing, make him a part of the “99 Club”. Now what’s the 99 club, the king enquired? To demonstrate, the wise counselor kept a bag containing 99 gold coins in front of the door of the servant’s house. When the servant discovered so many gold coins he was overwhelmed with joy. He took the bag inside and counted and recounted the coins. Only 99, he thought. What happened to the last coin? Surely no one would give him 99 coins. He went out and searched again, but could not find the last coin. He was very frustrated, but determined to work hard, save money and collect that last coin to complete his beautiful collection.  

From that day his life changed, he was overworked, scolded his wife and children for not working hard enough and lost his sleep. The wise councilor then declared in total satisfaction. “Your highness, the servant has now officially joined the 99 club”.  

But what relevance does this have to what I have to say further in this post. Well it’s like this. There was once a time when we used to write reviews and would be very happy to have it rated VU. The comments were a big bonus. In fact I had not even written a single review after joining MS on 30.4 06 right up to 15.11.07, and was only content in reading and commenting on others reviews!  

However everything changed with this new format of Diary posts and gifts. Kweldebs sent me the first ever gift as an appreciation of my reviews. And boy was I elated. Like a little kid who has just received his first racing car! And soon this became quite a practice, sending and receiving gifts. Can anyone forget the famous gift of the Airplane costing a whopping 30000 points to FE by Rohitthebest? What an interest that generated. I cannot help but mention another interesting episode that I happened to notice. One member cool_sun, saw Veekeey’s profile flashing as a star writer and went to the same. She incidentally saw all medicine gifts there that day, as Vee was feeling unwell and Smita had mentioned that in her post. However cool_sun had no background in the matter but seeing all medicines assumed that he needed more and without even knowing Vee sent him medicines! When I went to Vee’s profile page to check if he had received the medicines that I had sent him and also to see if there was any activity and consequently if he was feeling better, I happened to read cool_suns message to Vee. Her gesture inspired me so much that I too without knowing her, sent her a gift for gifting medicines to my friend!!  

Almost all my friends have given me gifts, and I cherish all of them. I too on my part have probably sent gifts to all I know here. If I missed out someone, Pl do forgive me. I do not want to mention any name here as I will not be able to cover all the 95 gifts and the ones who I miss out will feel bad. But I must add that all gifts irrespective of the value are very special and I use this post to thank all my friends who have sent them to me, including one from Faisal. In fact I advocate that we send gifts of lesser value so that more people and gifts can be covered in lesser points, as there is always a debit and credit issue to be taken care of.  

So friends now coming back to the issue of the 99 club, I now have 95 gifts (95 I may add is not much different from 99) and would like to complete my collection of 100. So what say, return gifts are assured! 

Hi Friends,

 

I had sometime back reviewed the German resort, Hotel Krone. Since then I had been struggling to get the photographs loaded but some or the other issue kept me from doing so. I think I am obliged to elaborate here. Firstly the camera that I have is rather primitive (read - not digital), so each time one has to wait for the reel to be completed before one can get the same developed. We also have here in Vadodara a rather nice studio that convert the pictures taken to digital version for no extra cost, if the original roll has been purchased from them. So we always make it a point to get the film roll uploaded from them whenever a trip is coming up. And then on our return they do all the needful.

 

To get back to the story of this reel, after I got them developed and loaded on a CD, I realized that even though the presentation that they usually make is working fine but for some reason the individual pictures are not copy able onto the hard drive. So I had to again take the CD back to them to assess the problem. When I did that they informed that due to some error they did not copy the pictures in digital form as they usually do, in addition to making a presentation out of them, and that I would have to get the negatives back to do the needful.

 

Managing all this in between a couple of hectic weeks has taken quite some time. So thank you for being patient, and do see and comment on them.

 

I would particularly like your comments on a practice of farming that I saw while returning to the airport there. If you notice there is some kind of a covering on the fields where certain crops are growing. If it was cloth or some other synthetic material, I could not figure out from the distance and the speed at which the van was being driven. Maybe we do cover our crops too here in India, but frankly I have never seen or heard of the same.

 

PS : I did not want to bother anyone with M2Ms of the post and still wanted to duly inform those who had been goading me to post the pictures, so thot of diary as the best method. Also i promise to change the camera before the film reels go out of production. Please bear with me till then !

Monday Blues

 

Why is it that Mondays are always the worst days of the week. It obviously has something to do with the fact that we feel the burden of the full week in front of us, and getting through the same looks like a daunting task. There are even statistics to prove this. American studies have shown that the maximum number of heart attacks take place between 9AM to 11AM on Monday mornings. And many among these are fatal. Such is the extent of Monday Blues.

 

So what can we do to lessen this burden. How do we get over this time. Suggestions are welcome as I too am feeling kinda blue right now…

It has been probably nearly a month now that news of the sex scandal at DIET-PET in Patan broke out. All the culprits were arrested the very next day and cases have been registered. Even the girls returned to the school after a week or so. Whereas one would have expected a respected and popular newspaper to report such news with high priority and then also follow it up to some extent, but what is being dished out now is too much.

 

Till now not one day has gone since the incident, that The Times of India – Ahmedabad edition has not reported this news on the front page with daily doses of the gory details. Someday they will tell of who out of the 6 teachers did what. What exactly was the procedure, how they took out chits, etc etc. Who watched and who performed. It has become like reading a pornographic book early in the morning. Every day for the past one month on the front page, is that not too much.

 

I am really disgusted with this newspaper, just as I was with the news of such a happening in Gujarat and am seriously considering changing my paper. Do some others in Gujarat also feel that way or am I overreacting ?