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N-deal: PM should stick to his stand

H.K. DUA’s front-page editorial, “India must not go back on nuclear deal” (June 20) is cogently argued and timely. It is now or never for the deal which is crucial for our economic development.

The Left’s mulish recalcitrance is anti-national and anti-poor. India cannot do without cheap and abundant power which can be generated only by modern nuclear reactors. Its phobia of American dominance is unfounded. Didn’t India carry out the Pokhran nuclear explosion and survive all the economic sanctions? We are strong enough to withstand any foreign pressures.

It is time the Centre went ahead with the deal. Even Russia has favoured it. Mr Dua has rightly observed: “Even if it goes ahead with the nuclear deal and the Left pulls the rug, it does not involve a great sacrifice.” Let the Left be left out in the national interest.

Prof BASANT SINGH BRAR, Bathinda

II

Obviously, the Left has no answer to Mr Dua’s two simple but pertinent questions. Energy conservation to check global warming and consequential climate change is a pressing necessity for our nation. The major challenge is to provide energy for the teeming millions in a reliable, cost-effective and sustainable manner.

We shall have to import about 94 per cent of our fuel requirements in the near future even though crude prices in the international market are surging higher. The CPM’s arguments to invest more in oil exploration, coal output and expedite the gas pipeline project with Iran are untenable and hackneyed in today’s scenario. It only reflects their ideological bias against the deal with the US. Ironically, the Left has no objection to increasing cooperation between the US, China and Russia in many areas.

At this juncture, nuclear energy is needed to sustain industrial growth without increasing carbon emissions further. The Left should read the writing on the wall and act responsibly. The people will teach a lesson to all those who would like to cling on to power at the cost of national development.

K.B. RALHAN, Palampur

III

The Left fears that the deal would strengthen India’s ties with the US and may pose a threat to the Chinese. The Communists are much more worried about the safety of the Chinese than Indians. The deal is in the overall interest of India and the whole world.

As the deal will help India join the international community in the sphere of peaceful use of nuclear energy, it should proceed to seek the approval of the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

However, before proceeding further, India must make it clear that it would have the right to carry out nuclear tests as and when it deems fit. The world knows that India is surrounded by countries possessing nuclear bombs.

Ignoring the Communists’ threat, the UPA government should go ahead without any delay even if it has to face early elections.

ARJUN SINGH CHHETRI, Manjoo (Solan)

IV

The Left parties have been playing hide and seek game with the Centre on the nuclear deal. Mr Dua has rightly said that a “fear psychosis” that the deal may push India into the US fold — a situation it cannot think of living with — has mainly contributed to their opposition to the deal.

Instead of giving primacy to national interest, the Left parties are bent on opposing the deal tooth and nail and have threatened withdrawal of support to the government. Governments come and go, but the nation remains. People will remember a government for its good deeds and not for its time span. The Centre should go ahead with the deal. Let the timetable and three years of labour on the deal not go waste. The government should not allow the Left and other parties and individuals to have their way.

R.D. GAUTAM, Panjgain (Bilaspur, HP)

Terror: Pak must come clean The exchange of hot words between Afghanistan and Pakistan shows that Afghanistan President Karzai is skeptical about the Pakistani Army’s commitment to fight the militancy that it had nurtured over the years. If people are coming from one country to kill innocent people in another, the victims’ country will, certainly, be concerned. Amidst the expanding scale and scope of cross-border attacks on Afghanistan from Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan has intensified. A degree of determined military action inside Pakistani territory is unavoidable if the war on terror is to be won. The time has come for Pakistan to come clean whether it will fight terrorism sincerely or become isolated in the international community. BIJAY SINGH, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad