M A I N   N E W S

India not to roll back N-programme
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, May 9 — India today rejected the demand of nuclear states for a rollback in its nuclear programme and said New Delhi could not join the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state.

Making a suo motu statement on the sixth Review Conference on the NPT, presently under way in New York, which India is not attending, the External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, informed the Rajya Sabha that the role of India’s nuclear weapons was defensive and that it shall maintain a minimum credible deterrence. The External Affairs Minister asserted that India would not engage in any arms race.

Mr Jaswant Singh rejected the statements made by the NPT states at the meeting asking India to roll back its nuclear programme. He said these were “mere diversions to prevent focused attention on the basic goals of the NPT.”

Mr Jaswant Singh announced that India had taken new nuclear initiatives calling for “de-alerting” of nuclear weapons as a means of reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorised launch. He added that India had already announced a policy of no-first use and a policy of no-use against non-nuclear weapon states.

“In fact this meets the demand for unqualified negative surety assurances, raised by the non-nuclear weapon states to ensure security,” he said.

The minister said India had also indicated readiness to provide “requisite assurances” to the nuclear weapon free zones in existence for those being negotiated. He said New Delhi’s commitment to global disarmament and lasting non-proliferation remained “undiluted”.

He said India was willing to commence negotiations on nuclear weapons convention and also ready to participate in “agreed and irreversible” steps to prepare the ground for such negotiations.

The minister said “a global no first use agreement and a non-use agreement against non-nuclear weapon state would meet the long-standing requirement for legally binding negative security assurance and assurances to nuclear weapon-free zones.”

Mr Jaswant Singh said India also favoured a commitment by nuclear weapons states not to deploy nuclear weapons outside their own national territories.

“Nuclear weapon states also need to take steps to lower the alert status, through gradual de-alerting actions, consistent with policies of no-first-use and the defensive role of nuclear weapons.”

Bindra writes to CBI chief
By Abhijit Chatterjee
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 9 — The former President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and President of the Punjab Cricket Association, Mr Inderjit Singh Bindra, said here today that he had written a letter to the Director of the CBI, Mr R.K. Raghvan, offering to provide “hard and reliable” information on the issue of match-fixing in cricket. The letter was sent to Mr Raghvan today shortly after Mr Bindra returned to Chandigarh.

Mr Bindra, who was in London where he had offered to provide similar information to the International Cricket Council on the issue of match-fixing but was denied permission to do so, has told the CBI that he needs a week to 10 days to collect all the information which will prove highly beneficial to the CBI , which is now investigating the issue of match-fixing after the charge of the Delhi Police that the then South African skipper Hansie Cronje had accepted money from a bookie to fix matches of the India versus South Africa series in March last had threatened to rip apart the whole cricketing world.

Speaking about the attitude of the International Cricket Council in not allowing him to present his information at the meeting in London, Mr Bindra said it was obvious that the International Cricket Council had “something to hide”. Mr Bindra said he would give to the CBI “hard and reliable information” and it was the job of the CBI to collect the necessary evidence and on the basis of that produce the challan in court.

The President of the Punjab Cricket Association, which is standing totally behind Mr Bindra, took pains to underline the fact that his fight against match-fixing was for a cause and not against any individual be it a player or an administrator. He refused to be drawn into any discussion on the issue of Kapil Dev having offered money to Manoj Prabhakar to play below his potential in a series in Sri Lanka in the mid-nineties (an allegation he had made in a television interview while in London) but admitted that today he had received a notice from Kapil’s lawyer in which he had asked Mr Bindra for an apology and withdrawal of the remark he had made against the former allrounder. Mr Bindra revealed that his lawyers would be sending a reply to the notice in due course of time.

Mr Bindra reiterated that it was Manoj who had revealed Kapil’s name to him while the latter was in Chandigarh on April 22. “The BCCI had never sought from Manoj the name of the player who had offered money to him and it was for this reason Manoj never revealed the name to anyone,” Mr Bindra said, and added:” Let Manoj deny that he did not make such a statement to me”.

(In this connection one must refer to the Justice Chandrachud report now made public by the board that the issue of match-fixing has come out in the open which also went into the issue of match-fixing. Justice Chandrachud also did not ask Manoj any specific question on who offered the money to play below potential and therefore Manoj did not mention any specific names.)

Mr Bindra today reiterated that the BCCI should not permit the national squad to play masala matches or off-shore cricket, be it in Sharjah, Singapore, Toronto or Bangladesh. Taking full responsibility for the matches played at Toronto, which were started when Mr Bindra was the board President, Mr Bindra was of the firm view that the players had no motivation to play there and it was only the middlemen who made money from such matches. In this connection he said while the BCCI earned Rs 7 crore from the matches from Toronto (which he finalised) , the earnings of the board from matches played at Sharjah(which has been going on for quite a long time) was only Rs 10 lakh to Rs 27 lakh. He, however, added that regular cricketing ties with full members of the International Cricket Council should not be stopped.

Mr Bindra emphasised again that the Punjab Cricket Association was backing him in his fight and in this connection he referred to the stopping of subsidies of TV rights and infrastructure by the BCCI. The Punjab Cricket Association is scheduled to get about Rs 70 lakh to Rs 80 lakh as subsidy for the TV rights while the infrastructure subsidy amounted to about Rs 1 crore.