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[1] From: syed rahman <surahman2000@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Mar 12, 2007 Subject: Book Review: Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing The Prospect For A Multipolar World Book Review: Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing The Prospect For A Multipolar World http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=891&Itemid=56 By Samir Amin Reviewed by Soroor Ahmed (khabrein.info) After February 10 Russian President Vladmir Putin’s Munich outburst against the United States no one can deny that the following passages from radical thinker Samir Amin’s recently published book were really prophetic: “First, the dismemberment of the Russian Federation following that of the USSR, is a major strategic objectives for the United States. Until now the Russian ruling class does not appear to have understood this. It seems that, having lost the war, it could go on to win the peace––as Germany and Japan did before it. What it forgot was that Washington needed the recovery of its two wartime enemies, precisely in order to face down the Soviet challenge. The new conjuncture is different, as the United States no longer has a serious rival. Its option is therefore to destroy its defeated Russian adversary once and for all. Has Putin finally understood this? Is Russia beginning to shake off its illusions? “Second, the huge size and economic success of China are such that the United States is seriously worried and here too has a strategic goal of dismembering the country. Read full review http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=891&Itemid=56 ------------- [2] From: Ravinder Singh <corruptionfree2007@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Mar 12, 2007 Subject: Nuclear Powering Option For India Nuclear Powering Option For India India nuclear power program did not get political support needed for Indian leaders wanted nuclear reactors to simultaneously serve civil and military objective, which was not acceptable to the world. When India didn’t have significant uranium reserves, India had to work on Thorium based much more complex breeder reactors that produce more nuclear fuel in the reactors than consumed. Japan too like India worked on breeder reactor Monju but is shut down since accident in 1996. Even if uranium was cheap but for fuel security, Japan recycled the spent fuel and extracting unused uranium and plutonium for further use in nuclear reactors for power generation as mixed fuel. Japan has in fact saved spent fuel than others nations disposing it in underground storages. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html India don’t have good quality coal that too is largely deposited in eastern region, insignificant gas reserve, hydro power is potential is in adequate and uncertain dependent on monsoon and gas reserves are not enough to meet priority needs of fast growing economy. Renewable power needs back up and average load factor is 10% to 20% only with high cost can’t deliver assured power. For energy security from availability viewpoint India must rely on nuclear power more than Japan simply because India use energy very inefficiently releasing six times more greenhouse gases per $million GDP. Nuclear power is the most trusted option in view of recent improvements in design and technology that is said to make them 100 times safer than operational reactors. India must take advantage of the experiences of the leaders in nuclear power. In view of extreme power shortage India must seriously consider nuclear program. When Japan and others didn’t have good experience with breeder technology India can’t blame its nuclear scientist to deliver commercially successful nuclear reactors. Commercial successful of a nuclear program is more aligned to national and political interest today than ever before. In case Westinghous could commission 1000 MW AP1000 reactor in 36 months compared to 6-10 years for indigenous design India must consider Westinghouse Design without delay. Each 1000 MW unit will deliver 24 billion units to 56 BU of electricity worth $2.4b to $5.6b at a rate of 10 cents per unit sale price by the time indigenous units could be commissioned. Excelon has set refueling record of 15 days compared to 105 days in 1990 working on 30-40 years old reactors, Indian average could be six months. Thus nuclear reactors may be shut down for few days in a year and secondly new reactors may last over 50 years. Therefore India need not have any hesitation in acquiring the best technologies and engage in long term contracts to ensure fuel supplies. Locating them in north Indian states can derive best competitive advantage of nuclear projects in Indian power situation. Even 1cent advantage for a 1000 MW unit producing 8 BU annually for 50 years is $40b gains. India may be concerned about high cost of power plants said to be around $2.4b for a 1000 MW but in this civil cost is 80% that could be executed by India companies like L&T. Bulk order may sharply reduce the cost also. India can’t do without nuclear power. Ravinder Singh March12, 2007 Inventor & Consultant http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Nuclear_fuel_the_last_opti\ on/articleshow/msid-1744284, curpg-1. cms Nuclear fuel, the last option V RANGANATHAN [SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 2007 03:24:00 AM] India’s current engagement with the US in dismantling the nuclear apartheid is hailed by the UPA government and the foreign policy establishment as a sign of India’s growing economic strength as well as recognition of the Vashisthtas of nuclear establishment, viz., the nuclear powers of the fact that India too has arrived. There are others, particularly the Left, which sees this as a needless kow-towing to the unipolar super power US, sacrificing national sovereignty and the lofty Nehruvian ideals of non-alignment. The truth however seems to lie elsewhere. It is to be noted that in the Indo-US nuclear agreement in the making the US Congress, through the Hyde Act, has made important exceptions to its general policy to enable India secure both technology and nuclear fuel. These include applying a waiver to the realities that India has conducted nuclear tests through the peaceful nuclear explosion route, that it is still having a weapons programme called the strategic programme, and the fact that India will not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (The US and UK themselves have signed but not ratified CTBT), and is also not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). It has also agreed to India’s condition that only its civilian programme is open to full scope safeguards, i. e. inspection by International Atomic Energy Agency, but not its strategic programme. The benefit to India is expected to be the access to nuclear technology as well as nuclear fuel by lifting the ban on the sale of nuclear fuel to India by the Nuclear Supply Group. On both sides there is one rhetoric and a different reality. On the US side, the rhetoric is that India’s energy consumption is bound to increase, and the nuclear agreement will divert India to source a significant chunk of its energy needs from this, putting less pressure on oil which the Americans want to buy cheaply in the global market. This is a bit na?ve, for India does not use much oil for its electricity generation — except in captive power plants — and there is no great substitutability of electricity with oil in end use, save in railway traction. On the side of realpolitik, India’s advancement in the strategic sector to match China’s nuclear arsenal would indeed suit the US in containing the emerging China which is bidding for the super power status, both economically and militarily. After all, just as recently as this month China reportedly tested anti-satellite weapon, and the US also has been carrying out ballistic missile defence system in East Asia ostensibly to constrain North Korea and possibly even China. On the economic front, it revives the nuclear power equipment manufacturing industry in the US, which has been languishing for the last 20-odd years with no orders ever since there has been a ban on expansion of nuclear electricity in the US. With lower value-added jobs migrating to India through the outsourcing route, and the US labour productivity growth reaching an all-time low of 1.6% last year, revival of the nuclear and weapons industry is just the high value-added replacement that it would be looking for. Now what is in the deal for India? Contrary to the popular perception and rhetoric that it would be a boost to the civilian nuclear programme, the economics is against it. A study done by me for the DAE about 34 years ago found that nuclear electricity is about twice as costly as coal-based thermal electricity. That conclusion even now stands by and large, except when you switch to much higher capacity plants like 1600 MW, from the present 220 MW units, bringing with it economies of scale. Even then the nuclear equipment industry is quite a bit oligopolistic and India is unlikely to get the plants at competitive prices. On the technology side, what India needs is the fast breeder technology using the thorium fuel cycle, which is abundantly available in the sands of Kerala, but no one in the world has this technology at a commercial scale, nor is it in their interest to develop it, because the other countries are not rich in thorium. India has a successful fast breeder test reactor but has not succeeded in making commercial reactors. So it is clear that what India needs is fuel and not the technology or the equipment, so much. And it also needs the fuel more for its strategic programme than for the civilian programme, when it has some 300 billion tonnes of coal and plenty of hydro and gas in the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and CIS countries. So the key question is how the 1-2-3 Agreement which will give the flesh and blood to the Hyde Act, will enable India secure the fuel for its strategic purposes. Fuel for the civilian purposes will only help India retain an option on nuclear electricity, without necessarily using it, unless the other sources like coal and gas become uneconomical through environmental constraints. Also since every gram of fuel for civilian purposes will be monitored and accounted for by intrusive inspections, it will have no use in the strategic programme. Thus the Indian political, atomic energy and foreign policy establishments must clearly confront this reality and provide an answer to the people of India. (The author is RBI Chair Professor, IIM Bangalore) -------------- [3] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Mar 12, 2007 Subject: Indian Muslim Conference on India's Foreign Policy ONE DAY SENMINAR ON INDIA’S FOREIGN POLICY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OBSERVATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS Following a day long seminar on People's Foreign Policy on 10th March 2007, New Delhi which was organized by Muslim Organizations which included the Jamaat-I-Islami-Hind, Jamaat-I-Ulema-i-Hind, Alhle-e-Hadees, Shia organizations and Maulana Muzammilull Haq represented (Ibnae Qadeem Deoband). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mahajanapada ---------------------------------- |
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| << March11, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] March 11 posts 7-9 Pak CJ ,Border fencing etc |
March15, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net]Bangla infiltration,Singur, re-Panda ,re-knifing..etc >> |
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