Uncle Sam... India really needs to be adorned with nuclear technology!

TERRORISM preoccupies Indian minds as pre-planned, organised violence is perpetrated on crowds of shoppers, week after week.

Saturdays are no longer the relaxed weekend for shopping, sightseeing or visiting. The festival season is on, with Aidilfitri gone and Puja coming. Deepavali is but two weeks away. But these have become occasions for fearsome foreboding. Where and when will the next attack come?

India is bleeding, even as it surges ahead on the economic front, with 45 nations enabling it to gain access to nuclear energy and a range of technologies. This is a pity.

Thirty-eight bomb blasts have ripped through four cities since May 13, killing 158. Many more have been maimed. Last year's score, or that of the previous year's, was lower, but no less vicious.India has faced terrorism for a long time, attributing it to its volatile neighbourhood. But what it is facing in recent years is indigenous militancy, which is more dreadful, more painful.Part of the reason is the post-9/11 backlash that much of the world is facing. But events at home (to call them "mistakes" may be appropriate but certainly not sufficient) by the Hindutva forces have contributed to it in a big way.

Some political parties are taking dubious advantage, so cynical have they become as elections come closer. Terrorism is to be vote-cashed. To counter it, some other parties and individuals take up the cause of the minorities, the entire communities, in a manner that can only render them disservice and alienate them further in the eyes of the majority.

Both these approaches scuttle the effort to fight terrorism. Terrorism is unlikely to vanish into thin air soon. India needs to make long-term plans with a response that is both political and security-minded.
(Excerpt from “Terrorism takes a bite out of weekend shopping” published in nstonline)

Note: It is amazing how suicide bombings and terrorism are well accepted in India, while the US is trying to arm India with nuclear technology…

Violence against minorities, especially Christians and Muslims, is becoming a fashion in India.. The brutality is increasing at an alarming rate while the government is turning deaf ears towards the cries. Even the International criticism against such brutality and aggression has made no difference is the ignorant attitude of the Indian government. Muslims and Christians are burnt alive. Their worship places are being demolished. The havoc is getting dreadful every minute.

Note: Yet the zeal with which west is dragging the nuclear deal is un-understandable.

The Indian diplomat G. Parathasarathy admitted supporting terrorism in Sri Lanka. He synically recorded his confession “We have learnt our lesson” for backing the terrorist and that “India paid its price for backing the LTTE”. India has not paid a price for the atrocities committed by the LTTE. It needs to pay the price and call the dogs of war off, but India is not doing that...

Note: Still the US is trying to arm India with nuclear technology…

Amnesty International has charged India on four counts.
1) Increasing violence against marginalised communities and
2) Their Forced evictions in the name of development,
3) The trampling of human rights in the name of war on terrorism and protecting national security, reluctance to abolish death sentence - India had voted against a UN General Assembly resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty and
4) India’s refusal to allow UN Rapporteur on Torture and Enforced Disappearances to visit and investigate the cases. Jamia Millia Islamia Vice Chancellor Prof. Mushirul Hassan and a noted activist Sadia Dehelvi, who unveiled the report, lamented that a campaign for human rights and concern for marginalised sections were a least priority for the government and its powerful media.

Note: At the same time US is getting edgy to arm India with nuclear technology…

International human rights watchdog Amnesty International has said that despite a limited urban economic boom affecting a section of the population, India continues to lag behind on human rights, reporting gross abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, North-Eastern states (Seven Sisters) and the Gujarat Naxalite-affected states of Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, revealing the true face of India. The seven states of the Northeast are not in control of the central government and are in open rebellion against New Delhi.

Note: While the US, in spite of everything, is showing keen interest and intense desire to arm India with nuclear technology…

The report says that despite economic progress, around 300 million people remained in poverty. It charged the government with ignoring existing constitutional provisions while forcing tribals and marginalised sections from their homes and allotting property to industrialists. In the Bihar state alone about 49.5 percent of rural Muslim families and 44.8 percent of the urban Muslim households fall below the poverty line… (That’s secularism I guess…?)

Note: And the US is striving hard to arm India with nuclear technology…

Twelve Indian states have “alarming” levels of hunger while the situation is “extremely alarming” in the state of Madhya Pradesh, says a new report. India has more people suffering hunger - a figure above 200 million. The report, released as part of the 2008 Global Hunger Index, ranks India at 66 out 88 countries.
“Despite years of robust economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh,” the report says. The best performing state was Punjab, which has a ’serious’ hunger problem and does less well than developing countries such as Gabon, Vietnam and Honduras.
India is long known to have some of the highest rates of child malnutrition and mortality in under-fives in the world.

Note: Amazingly, the US is enthusiastically trying to arm India with nuclear technology…

India is bleeding… people are dying with hunger… poverty is moving on to extremes… states getting out of control of the central government… malnutrition getting worse… the Hindutva forces are contributing to terrorism… further, the terrorism is being vote-cashed… violence against marginalised communities is on the increase… bloodshed is tremendous…

With all this in picture the impatient expectancy shown by the west to arm India with Nuclear technology is something a sane mind cannot understand. This is probably the time when India needs to concentrate on the real issues prevailing inside the country rather than concentrating on such deals... India can never fulfill its dream of becoming super power when majority of its population is dying with hunger.