India-US

[sunny]

เมื่อวันที่ 30 กรกฎาคมที่ผ่านมา อินเดียและสหรัฐฯ ได้มีการลงนามสัญญาผลิตพลังงานนิวเคลียร์อย่างเป็นทางการ

ภายใต้กระบวนการคุ้มครองจากทบวงการพลังงานปรมาณูระหว่างประเทศ (IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency)

ทำให้องค์กรเอกชนของสหรัฐ (CIA) เข้าไปดำเนินการต่างๆตามนโยบายสหรัฐฯ

ภายใต้เอกชนที่แบ่งส่วนการตลาดทางนิวเคลียร์ของอินเดีย โดยสัญญาระบุให้อินเดียร่วมใช้พลังงานด้วย

แท้จริงแล้ว การลงนามในครั้งนี้ของสหรัฐฯ

เป้าหมายคือการควบคุมการผลิตพลังงานนิวเคลียร์ของอินเดีย

และเป็นฐานที่มั่นในการโจมตีประเทศจีนในอนาคต

ทั้งนี้ในรัฐธรรมนูญของสหรัฐฯระบุไว้อย่างชัดเจนว่า

"we right to protect our interest around the globe"

[sunny]

U.S., India formally sign nuclear reprocessing pact

The United States and India on Friday formally signed an agreement on reprocessing spent nuclear fuel that U.S. officials hope will allow American firms a share of India's $150 billion nuclear energy market.

The agreement, signed by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns and Indian Ambassador to the United States H.E. Meera Shankar, will enable Indian reprocessing of U.S.-originated nuclear material under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

It is part of the countries' 2008 bilateral civilian atomic pact that ended India's nuclear isolation after its 1974 atomic test. The pact gave India access to U.S. technology and fuel, while also opening up the global nuclear market to India.

"Increased civil nuclear trade with India will create thousands of new jobs for the U.S. economy while helping India to meet its rising energy needs in an environmentally responsible way by reducing the growth of carbon emissions," the U.S. State Department said in a press release.

The pact is expected to enter into force in early August. But a hurdle remains before U.S. firms are expected to begin participating in the Indian nuclear market.

U.S. firms are reluctant to do business in India without legislation that underwrites their compensation liability in the case of industrial accidents.

Legislation to limit nuclear firms' liability in the case of industrial accidents has stalled in the Indian parliament, though it has been cleared by the cabinet.

Opposition parties seek to put a maximum liability of about $450 million on the state-run reactor operator without placing any compensation burden on private suppliers and contractors.

India has offered to tender construction of two nuclear power plants, a business opportunity worth $10 billion, to U.S.-based firms such as General Electric Co and Westinghouse Electric Co, a subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba Corp.

But the liability issue has put U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage over Russian and French firms whose accident liability is underwritten by their governments. The Russian and French have already been awarded contracts.

[sunny]

Does India counteract China by building a strategic tunnel?

ดูภาพประกอบได้ที่่ http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/31/world/0801PASS-2.html

The name of this white-knuckle pass, one of the highest in the world, means “pile of corpses” in the Tibetan language. Every year a few dozen people die trying to cross these spiky Himalayan peaks.

For six months the road is snowbound, putting at the mercy of the elements tens of thousands of Indian troops posted beyond it in this remote but strategically important region along India’s long and disputed border with China.

India is now racing to match its rival for regional and global power, building and bolstering airstrips and army outposts, shoring up neglected roads and — finally, decades after it was first proposed — building a tunnel to bypass the deadly Rohtang Pass.

In June, work started on the ambitious project, which will take five years and require boring five miles through the Pir Panjal range. Several other tunnels, which would allow all-weather access to Ladakh, which abuts the Tibetan Plateau, are also in the works.

China’s push to develop its infrastructure on its side of the border — including an all-weather railway to Tibet that includes the world’s highest tunnel, at 16,000 feet — is viewed with considerable suspicion in India.

During the summer, thousands of trucks, laden with supplies to last the harsh mountain winters, rumble up the two roads that lead to Ladakh, from Manali and Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

The road from Ladakh to Srinagar is also closed in the winter, and because of its proximity to the Line of Control that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan, Indian officials worry that the road can easily be cut, as it was in 1999, when the two countries clashed at Kargil.

Gurmeet Kanwal, a retired brigadier who runs the Center for Land Warfare Studies, a New Delhi research institution, said India could not afford to be cut off from its most vulnerable reaches half of the year.

“As long as we have these territorial disputes you cannot rule out another border conflict,” Brigadier Kanwal said. “We would like to make sure that we can deploy our forces in the right quantities in the right places.” (From New York Times)

Reports point out the tunnel under the Rohtang Pass will enable the strategic railway line to connect Himachal Pradesh and India-controlled Kashmir. One Indian military official says the tunnel will facilitate Indian army to deploy troops rapidly from the inland to India-controlled Kashmir as well as the west of the China-India border.

According to Indian Media, China has completed a railway line of 3,900 kilometers from Beijing to Lhasa and plans other 7 railway programs along the border with India. Within 3 years, China will build a plateau railway line with a total length of 5,000 kilometers, which will connect important areas in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Indian media think the Rohtang Pass plays the key role in India's strategic railway, which will counteract China and provide guarantee for Indian troops stationed in the west of the China-India border.

According to Brahma Chellaney, an researcher at the Center for Policy Research in New Delh, India is belatedly seeking to do is to improve its defenses by upgrading its logistics. He says China is capable of moving additional forces rapidly to the border to potentially strike at India at a time of its choosing by building new railroads, airports and highways in Tibet. He points out that the Sino-Indian border remains more unstable than the Pakistani-Indian frontier.

Another Indian expert in India-China relations thinks India has regarded the Himalayas as a form of protection, not a barrier to be overcome for much of its history. He says India has been very slow to develop the border areas and believes if India improves the infrastructure, it would only allow the Chinese to walk into its territory. He thinks this was very foolish and naive.

Analysis points out whether the strategic railway will be completed on schedule is determined by the construction of the tunnel under the Rohtang Pass. According to an Austrian engineer, because no one is sure what kind of rock will be found inside the mountain, the tunnel will be built using a painstaking method of blasting and digging, rather than the tunnel-boring machines that have revolutionized tunnel construction in recent years.

Sources say India has increasingly enhanced construction of traffic facilities along the border in recent years with the purpose of strengthening its capability of projecting its troops.

[sunny]

India develops anti-missile directed energy weapons

India is developing a series of directed energy weapons (DEW) to improve the anti-ballistic missile capability, local media reported on Tuesday.

A laser weapon of the DEW family are being developed, which could fire a beam with a potency of 25 kilowatt. This type of laser weapon would intercept a ballistic missile in its terminal phase within the range of seven kilometers, Indian newspaper the Indian Times quoted Anil Kumar Maini, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)'s Laser Science and Technology Center director, as saying.

The ballistic missile would explode as its shell temperature is heated to 200-300 degrees Celsius by the laser beam, the Director explained.

The DEW is a sophisticated weapon that could destroy a target by emitting and transferring the energy to a target in an aimed direction. Some types are in development in some countries. Among the DEW, laser weapons usually generate high-energy pulses against targets.

According to the weapon development roadmap by the Indian Ministry of Defense, the DEW would be one of the top priorities for the Indian advanced weapons development over the next fifteen years, said the report.

A gas dynamic laser-based DEW is also being developed by The Center. It could be flexibly deployed by a moving vehicle, Maini said.

In the future, the Indian laser weapons could be carried by three services' platforms, such as the Air Force's transport planes, fighters and the Navy's destroyers and submarines, according the report.

If their developments are smooth, the Indian new laser weapons test would be conducted within several years by DRDO.

On February 12, 2010, a U.S. high-powered airborne laser weapon shot down a mocked ballistic missile, and became the first successful test for a airborne DEW to destroy a ballistic missile.

India has carried out two anti-ballistic missile interception tests by launching the anti-aircraft missiles since the beginning of this year. Among them, the July's test succeeded while March's test failed due to the anti-aircraft missile's radar failing to track the mocked target.

[sunny]

US border bill aims at Indian companies

PHOENIX: Indian high-tech workers do not typically sneak into the United States through Mexico, but beefing up the Southwest border may still make it tougher for them to migrate here.

A Senate bill approved on Thursday night by unanimous consent would pay for more security along the Mexico border by raising fees for companies from India that operate in the United States and hire so many Indian workers that they have been criticized for violating the spirit of American immigration law.

The $600 million spending bill would send 1,500 more Border Patrol agents, customs inspectors and other law enforcement officials to the Southwest border, finance additional aerial drones to monitor remote desert regions and build two operating bases close to the border to help reduce illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

“It’s just a great package,” Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, said in a conference call with reporters on Friday. She contends that the Obama administration has made the border more secure than ever but nonetheless hears the frustration of many local politicians, especially those in her home state, Arizona, who say that immigration is out of control.

Republicans had proposed paying for the beefed-up security by tapping into stimulus money. But Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said his staff had come up with an alternative that would not hurt American workers: raising the visa application fees paid by any companies with more than 50 people in which more than half the work force has H-1B or L visas that are intended for skilled foreign workers.

Senate aides said four Indian companies would qualify for the significantly higher fees: Tata, Infosys, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam, all of which operate in the United States and are criticized as “body shops” because they provide outsourcing of Indian professionals to American companies. Large American high-tech corporations, which bring the bulk of the skilled immigrants into the United States, would not be affected since the vast majority of their work forces are made up of Americans.

India’s high-tech industry reacted angrily to the proposal, with the New Delhi-based National Association of Software and Services Companies issuing a statement saying that raising the visa fees by more than $2,000 per application would violate international trade practices and unfairly focus on Indian companies. And Peter McLaughlin, an Infosys spokesman, said, “It is unfortunate that this tax is being levied on a discriminatory basis when the need is to open markets to make companies more competitive in the global marketplace.”

But senators complained that the companies could remedy the situation by hiring more Americans. “I’m thrilled that these companies are complaining about having to hire more Americans,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “That is the whipped cream and cherry on top of this sundae.”

The House may take up the bill next week.

The Times of India

[sunny]

Russia's MiG-35 multirole fighter aircraft

Russia's MiG-35 stalls in Indian fighter tender contract

Russia's MiG-35 multirole fighter aircraft has failed to make the short-list in a $10 billion international tender for 126 combat aircraft for the Indian air force, according to Indian media reports quoted by Kommersant daily.

The favorites to win the tender are the French Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, Indian media say.

Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), the holding company for most of the Russian aircraft industry, and its fighter subsidiary MiG, have not officially confirmed the reports.

"The official results of the tender have not yet been announced," said UAC's Press Secretary Konstantin Lantratov.

"The MiG-35 is not leaving the tender, and I have no official information about this," said UAC First Vice-President Mikhail Pogosyan.

A MiG source quoted by Kommersant said it was too early to say what the Indians had decided.

"The envelopes with the commercial proposals should be studied by the tender commission only this week," the source said.

Several sources quoted by the paper listed a raft of problems around the MiG-35 program, including a lack of financing to support it. One source said the lack of state funding to support the program had been noted by UAC President Aleksei Fyodorov as long ago as the end of 2008, but the issue was not resolved.

The MiG-35 is said to be a cheaper aircraft than its rivals but is said to have problems with engine life.

"Time between overhauls should be at least 2000 hours and overall life 4000 hours, but the RD-33 doesn't meet these parameters now," said one source.

India already operates the early model MiG-29A fighter aircraft and is taking delivery of the MiG-29K naval fighter, which it will operate from a Russian-built aircraft carrier which is currently under refit.

The selection of two favored aircraft for the Indian tender follows a long trials process, which also involved Sweden's SAAB Gripen, America's Lockheed Martin with the F-16, and Boeing's F-18 Super Hornet, as well as the Russian MiG-35.

RIA Novosti

[sunny]

Sukhoi Su-30MKI

India Deploys Su-30s Near China

The Indian Air Force has deployed a full squadron of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole aircraft to an air base near the Chinese border.

The Su-30s are at the Air Force base in Tezpur in the eastern state of Assam.

Another air base near the border, Chabua, is being upgraded to house Sukhois, transport aircraft and eventually the Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), a senior Indian Air Force official said.

The moves are part of the effort to strengthen India's defenses against China.

The MMRCA will fly in the Indian northeast near the Chinese border and northwest, near Pakistan, the official said.

In June, the government approved a deal worth more than $3.3 billion to buy 42 more Su-30s, bringing the planned total to 272 by 2018.

The Su-30 will be the most numerous fighter in the Indian fleet.

The official said a nuclear-armed Su-30MKI could fly deep inside China with midair refueling.

Defense News

[sunny]

File photo of BHP Billiton's OlympicDam copper and uranium
operation at Roxby Downs in South Australia.

Australian opposition vows uranium for India

Australia's opposition Thursday vowed to sell uranium to nuclear power India if elected this month and cautioned against over-reliance on China, the country's top trading partner.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and his conservative, opposition rival Julie Bishop debated foreign policy for the first time ahead of knife-edge August 21 elections, laying out contrasting visions.

Smith touted his government's record since taking office in 2007, saying Labor had restored "neglected" ties with the United Nations and key countries in the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Australia had withdrawn combat troops from Iraq while maintaining good relations with the United States, which Smith described as "the bedrock of our strategic security and defence arrangements".

It had also played a key role in establishing the G20 as the premier international economic institution, which he said was "the most significant achievement of Australian foreign policy since APEC became a leaders' meeting".

"This is the century of the Asia-Pacific: economic, strategic, security, military, influence is moving in our direction," Smith said.

When prime minister, Kevin Rudd saw China as a key partner and the Mandarin-speaking former diplomat made ties with Beijing a priority of his rule, cut short by a June coup which rudely forced him from office.

But Smith said Labor was not "starry-eyed" about relations with China.

"There have been tensions in the relationship with China because we do, as different countries and different people, share different values and virtues," he said.

Bishop described China as a country fraught with challenges and said some poorer nations in the region were "over-reliant" on Chinese aid, implying they had been forced to open up to Chinese investment in exchange for assistance.

But she rejected an official assessment that "conventional warfare with China" was the nation's greatest long-term security threat and said "ongoing military, strategic co-operation with China is essential".

Bishop put Japan, the United States and Indonesia at the centre of the Liberal-National coalition's foreign policy, and urged greater engagement with India, Australia's eighth-largest trading partner.

"We will reinstate the in-principle decision to sell uranium to India and we will resume a free trade agreement and greater defence co-operation: we are natural maritime partners," she said.

Australia has 27 percent of the world's uranium reserves but the centre-left Labor government has said it will be sold only to nations that are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which does not include India.

From AFP

[sunny]

India Pursues Laser-Based Missile Defenses

India is working on a number of devices intended to destroy enemy ballistic missiles with concentrated energy beams, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday (see GSN, July 26).

India's Defense Ministry in a planning document placed the development of antimissile "directed energy weapons" among its highest priorities for the next 15 years (see GSN, May 25). Trials of the defenses are expected within several years if work on the technology proceeds as planned (Xinhua News Agency, Aug. 3).

"Lasers are weapons of the future. We can, for instance, use laser beams to shoot down an enemy missile in its boost or terminal phase," the Times of India quoted Anil Kumar Maini, who heads the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization's Laser Science and Technology Center, as saying (Rajat Pandit, Times of India, Aug. 3).

One device under development would fire a 25-kilowatt laser at a ballistic missile to destroy the weapon as its fell toward its target, Maini said. The system would render a missile harmless by rapidly heating it to between roughly 400 and 600 degrees Fahrenheit, the official was quoted as saying.

Another defensive weapon would rely on a road-mobile, gas-dynamic laser.

India might ultimately deploy such laser weapons by air and sea, according to the Defense Ministry "Technology Perspective and Capability Road Map" (Xinhua News Agency).

Laser-based weapons would comprise one component of a wider India missile defense network now under development, the Times of India reported. The newspaper noted, though, that the Defense Research and Development Organization is known to make claims regarding technology that it cannot ultimately produce (Pandit, Times of India).

[sunny]

South Korea Nears Atomic Trade Deals With India, Japan

India and South Korea are on pace to come to an agreement on nuclear energy collaboration before the start of 2011, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday.

The deal could give South Korean nuclear suppliers access to the burgeoning Indian atomic energy market.

The agreement could upset North Korea, though government sources in Seoul said not much worry was voiced over the trade deal with the nuclear-armed South Asian nation. Both India and the North have developed nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

South Korea is in separate negotiations with Japan on a deal that would permit bilateral trade of nuclear energy equipment. A tentative agreement has been reached and talks are expected to conclude this year. However, Tokyo is demanding the deal make clear that the South could not extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel rods -- a technique that could be used to produce weapon-grade plutonium.

Seoul has said the accord does not need that pledge as it has already rejected reprocessing of nuclear material in an earlier declaration on a nuclear weapon-free Korean Peninsula. Remaining talks between the East Asian countries are expected to work toward addressing this issue.

Japan is also considering nuclear trade with India (Yoshihiro Makino, Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 19).

[sunny]

Indian Ministers Back Updates to Atomic Liability Bill

Indian government ministers today endorsed updates to legislation that would clear the path for implementing a civilian nuclear trade deal with the United States, Reuters reported ( Nigam Prusty, Reuters, Aug. 20).

The alterations, recommended this week by a panel of lawmakers, are expected to secure the bill's passage in India's Parliament, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Aug. 20).

The updates would ban direct private-sector involvement in the nation's atomic energy sector and roughly triple the maximum amount the nation's government-managed nuclear plant operator could be required to pay following an accident. In addition, the bill could now enable the state-run plant operator to seek remuneration from private contractors found to have provided faulty equipment linked to an atomic mishap.

"The changes suggested by the panel have been approved by the Cabinet," Reuters quoted one minister as saying.

One additional change to the bill would be made tomorrow in response to complaints from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Indian Cabinet indicated (Prusty, Reuters).

The alteration, also demanded by Indian leftists, would strike the word "and" from a line describing terms under which the plant operator could demand compensation from a supplier after an accident, the Press Trust of India reported. "The operator of a nuclear installation shall have a right to recourse where -- (A) such right is expressly provided for in a contract in writing," the clause states (Press Trust of India/The Hindu, Aug. 20).

The opposition groups feared including the word would limit the liability of contractors to cases specifically laid out in agreements with the plant operator, according to Reuters.

"We will make a minor change to it," Earth Sciences Minister Prithviraj Chavan said of the legislation (Prusty, Reuters).

The need for New Delhi to enact atomic liability statutes has left General Electric Co. and other U.S. firms behind government-run French and Russian companies racing to take advantage of India's civilian nuclear energy market, AFP reported. France and Russia would bankroll potential expenses for their atomic suppliers that could arise from accidents (Agence France-Presse).

[sunny]

India Plans Ballistic Missile Test Next Month

India plans next month to test-fire a sophisticated version of its nuclear-capable Agni 2 ballistic missile, United Press International reported.

The two-stage weapon would launch from Wheeler Island, a top testing site six miles from the east coast of India in the Bay of Bengal.

The missile has a top flight distance of 1,800 miles, hundreds of miles farther than the standard Agni 2, according to the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization. A layer of chromium metal was added to the weapon's nose cone to counter atmospheric resistance, according to one scientist.

India in May successfully test-launched the Agni 2 following two failed tests in 2009.

New Delhi also used Wheeler Island for a February test-firing of its Agni 3 missile, which is designed to fly about 2,000 miles.

The next few months could also see testing of the next-generation Agni 5 missile, which could travel roughly 3,100 miles, UPI reported.

"Agni 5 is out of the drawing board. We are aiming for a flight trial within a year," DRDO chief V.K. Saraswat said in February (United Press International/Spacewar.com, Aug. 20).

[sunny]

Pentagon Vets Missile Defenses in Simulation

The United States has wrapped up a simulation examining coordination of components of its Ballistic Missile Defense System, United Press International reported Thursday.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Northrop Grumman Corp. carried out the exercise, which portrayed an enemy missile attack from launch to engagement by the antimissile system.

Technology analyzed in the simulation included the Space-Based Infrared System, Patriot Advanced Capability defenses, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system and the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications system.

"Performance Assessment 2009 was a great success," said Karen Williams, vice president of Air and Missile Defense Systems for Northrop Grumman's Information Systems division. "Through disciplined and rigorous integration and more than 2,500 test executions, we created a baseline configuration for 36 distinct scenarios."

"PA09 was a critical step in providing our war fighting commanders with accurate predictions of the performance of the BMDS," Williams said (United Press International, Aug. 19).

[sunny]

Japan, India Hold Nuclear Trade Talks

Japan cautioned Saturday that any civilian atomic trade with India would be contingent upon that nation's pledge not to carry out any more tests of its nuclear arsenal, the Associated Press reported .

Bilateral negotiations were initiated in June on an agreement that would give New Delhi access to Japanese nuclear materials and technology. Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada's trip to the Indian capital for discussions with Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna were seen to advance those talks.

Okada said that while there was no schedule for negotiations to be completed, "Japan will have no option but to state that we shall suspend all cooperation" should the South Asian nation carry out another nuclear weapons test.

"We agreed that the negotiations will continue quickly and that we will jointly work toward a good agreement which will result in a win-win situation for both India and Japan," Krishna said.

India was barred from the global nuclear market after first conducting a nuclear test blast in 1974, AP reported. The 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 agreed to reopen atomic trade with New Delhi (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, Aug. 21).

Tokyo would like the potential agreement to specify that trade would be suspended following another Indian nuclear test, Kyodo News reported. That clause is evidently an attempt to mollify those who have criticized the talks due to India's status as a nuclear-armed nation outside of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

However, New Delhi is not expected to readily agree to the provision and difficult deliberations between the two nations are anticipated going forward, watchers said.

Krishna has asserted his government has not been required in trade deals with the United States and other countries to accept a ban on nuclear testing, an Indian diplomatic insider said (Kyodo News/iStockAnalyst.com, Aug. 21).

Meanwhile, further complications have arisen in the Indian government's effort to persuade the nation's Parliament to approve nuclear liability legislation that would enable implementation of the 2008 U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement, Reuters reported today.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has retreated from an earlier pledge to back an updated version of the liability bill on grounds that new language inserted by the Congress Party-headed coalition government would make it harder to prove liability on the part of foreign nuclear firms in the event of an atomic accident.

The wording now requires actual intent to inflict harm by nuclear suppliers, who have been added to the latest iteration of the legislation, according to the opposition party.

"They have inserted 'intent.' That is the problem," BJP lawmaker S.S. Ahluwalia said.

"It is difficult to establish 'willful,' for compensation. This [clause] is not adequate," Ahluwalia said.

Support from the Bharatiya Janata Party is required for the measure to pass Parliament's upper house. The coalition government would like to see the legislation, which significantly increased the liability cap, approved before the beginning of next month (C.J. Kuncheria, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Aug. 23).

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today reaffirmed its opposition to the liability bill, claiming leaders are overly focused on meeting Washington's demands and seeing the measure passed prior to U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to the South Asian state in November, the Press Trust of India reported.

"Most of the energies of this government is to somehow see that this bill is passed before President Obama comes to India," party leader Prakash Karat said to journalists. "That itself is a telling commentary on what are the priorities concerned."

The United States does not want its nuclear firms to be held culpable in the event of an atomic reactor disaster, he asserted.

"That is the purpose of this bill. It’s a shameful thing that you need a bill like this," Karat said (Press Trust of India/The Hindu, Aug. 23).

[sunny]

Airborne Laser Test Postponed Again

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has again delayed a test intended to further prove the capability of its Airborne Laser system to destroy enemy missiles, Reuters reported yesterday.

The exercise had been scheduled for early yesterday over the Pacific Ocean near California. A converted Boeing 747 in flight was to fire its directed energy weapon at a mock ballistic missile, potentially causing the weapon to overheat and fail.

However, technical issues forced the agency to push back the test for the fourth time in recent weeks.

"Troubleshooting indicates that a hot bypass valve on the aircraft is in an abnormal condition thus not allowing for proper component cooling," the agency said in a statement. "The team is evaluating the potential causes."

The Airborne Laser destroyed a target missile in its first intercept test on Feb. 11. This planned test has been held up by various glitches, but the agency plans to reschedule the exercise for this week (Jim Wolf, Reuters, Aug. 22).

[sunny]

India to buy Javelin missiles to fill gap

The delay in the manufacture of indigenous NAG missiles has forced India to consider buying thousands of Javelin anti-tank guided missiles from the United States.

The Indian government would go down the route of a U.S. direct foreign military sale when ordering the Javelin, made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The process could frustrate European, in particular Russian, ATGM manufactures because it bypasses the global competitive tender route.

Defense Minister A. K. Antony told Parliament that a letter-of-request had been sent to the U.S. government for procurement of the third-generation off-the-shelf Javelin. Included in the letter is a transfer of technology request that could mean the man-portable Javelin is made under license in India.

Antony gave no indication of numbers of missiles needed, nor of numbers to be made in India.

What is known, however, is the army's acknowledged shortfall of around 44,000 ATGMs -- half of their required number. The Javelin order could run into the thousands until the first, vehicle-launched version of the NAG, meaning "snake" in Sanskrit, is inducted into the army next year.

The third-generation NAG with a 2.5-mile range has been 20 years in development and is on the verge of entering production.

But the army first will be getting the largest, vehicle-launch version of the missile, nearly 6 feet long, 7.5 inches in diameter and weighing around 95 pounds.

Other plans for the NAG include a helicopter-launched version with a range of nearly 5 miles. Launch systems are planned for the armed HAL Dhruv and HAL light combat helicopters produced by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics.

A 6-mile air-launched version will probably be set up for use by the air force's aging Anglo-French Jaguar fighters made by SEPECAT.

Also planned is a similar land version, to be launched from a hydraulically lifted mast. A man-portable version will be a direct competitor to the Javelin and weigh around 9 pounds, as against 26 pounds for the Javelin.

The army has ordered 443 NAG missiles and 13 Namicas, the missile's tracked carrier, the main tank-busting vehicle. The missiles are carried on the sides of the Namica for offensive operations.

Currently, infantry units are relying on two man-portable ATGMs. The second-generation French Milan is made by Paris's MBDA and has a range of just more than 1 mile. The Russian Konkurs ATGM, designed and made by Tula Machinery Design Bureau, has a range of around 2.5 miles.

Both of the wire-guided missiles are also produced under license in India by PSU Bharat Dynamics.

To help ease the shortfall of ATGMs , the army has ordered since 2008 around 4,100 of the advanced version Milan-2T missiles with tandem warheads and 15,000 Konkurs-M missiles.

The Javelin has been used by U.S. forces during bilateral battalion-level combat exercises, including the annual Yudh-Abhyas at the Indian army's Babina base, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, last October.

UPI

[hacksecrets]

Indian police detain a Greenpeace activist protesting against the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill outside the parliament in New Delhi

India's new nuclear law criticised by business groups

New legislation aimed at throwing open India's lucrative 150-billion-dollar civilian atomic energy market could deter private suppliers because of tough provisions, business groups said Thursday.

The nuclear liability bill, key to implementing a 2008 flagship atomic energy pact with the United States that granted India access to foreign civilian technology, was passed by lawmakers late Wednesday after the government conceded to opposition demands to toughen the law.

But business groups say the bill, intended to give private firms such as US-based General Electric access to India, could throw new hurdles in the way of the energy-hungry country's nascent nuclear power sector.

They have zeroed in on a clause in the bill that would allow nuclear power plant operators to pursue suppliers of equipment, raw materials and services for 80 year after the construction of any plant in the event of an accident.

The legislation threatens to hamper India's "nuclear renaissance and completely undo the government?s efforts to accelerate nuclear power generation in our country," said the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in a statement.

"This will surely affect our generation capacity," FICCI economic advisor Anjan Roy told AFP. "The bill has put very extended obligations on suppliers."

On Wednesday, Premier Manmohan Singh said the measure would end a decades-old "nuclear apartheid" that had prevented India from buying reactors and nuclear fuel abroad, after it conducted nuclear tests in the early 1970s.

The legislation now goes before the upper house, which it is expected to sail through. It will then be signed into law by India's president before a visit by President Barack Obama in November.

The legislation, wider in scope than a 1997 agreement signed by over 80 countries following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, has also been criticised by India's other leading business group, the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The group's director general, Chandrajit Banerjee, said the liability period was "a major deterrent" for suppliers and went against the global practice -- enshrined in the Chernobyl agreement -- of placing liability exclusively on operators.

He added long-term insurance cover for suppliers was not available globally and the provision "would stall the growth of the nuclear manufacturing industry in India".

The law was expected to benefit private suppliers General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba Corp., who had been reluctant to invest in India without a legal framework specifying their liability.

French and Russian state-owned nuclear firms, whose liabilities are underwritten by their governments, have already signed numerous deals.

AFP

[sunny]

US-India relations: Problems posed by Afghanistan and Iran

Author: David Karl, Asia Strategy Initiative

After much criticism for appearing to neglect New Delhi while courting Beijing, the Obama administration is now moving to inject a sense of urgency and momentum into US-India relations. But just as bilateral affairs seem to have acquired new dynamism, differences over Afghanistan and Iran threaten to undermine positive developments.

There are several factors that explain India’s drop from Washington’s foreign policy priorities. The Obama administration took office viewing Asia’s evolutions differently to the Bush era. And Obama’s prioritising of high profile engagement with Beijing on an array of global governance issues has diverted strategic focus from New Delhi.

In an address on US policy in Asia in November 2009, Obama failed to mention India even in passing. The omission was all the more glaring as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was due in Washington for a state visit a little over a week later.

But China’s treatment of Obama during his state visit to Beijing in November 2009 and at the climate summit in Copenhagen a month later has seen the administration revert to Bush-era strategic balancing vis-à-vis China.

The Bush administration’s publicly denied but widely understood goal was to build India’s strategic potential as a check against the rise of Chinese power.

Is this also the goal of the Obama administration?

Undersecretary of state for political affairs, William J. Burns, has affirmed in a recent address that the Obama administration is ‘deeply committed to supporting India’s rise.’ Burns has also called for India’s greater diplomatic and military involvement in East Asia and for enhanced US-Indian defence cooperation; ideas that are bound to irritate leaders in Beijing.

A month later, Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defence for policy, echoed these themes by proclaiming that ‘India’s success is very much in America’s national interest.’

This heightened focus on India increases the likelihood that President Obama’s trip to India will establish new milestones in bilateral relations.

But any attempt to strengthen this relationship will not be problem-free.

The first of these is Afghanistan. Obama may need to shore up his domestic political base by accelerating the drawdown of US military forces in Afghanistan. This would have obvious implications on Pakistan, and could in turn have serious consequences for US-India relations.

A second concern is the tightening US sanctions against Iran. With New Delhi feeling that the Obama administration has upset its interests in Afghanistan, India is enhancing its relations with Iran due to Indian dependence on Iranian oil resources. The close India-Iran relationship has long troubled Washington. For its part, the Indian government has complained that US sanctions that penalise companies helping the Iranian petroleum sector adversely affect Indian enterprises seeking to develop oil and natural gas fields in Iran.

A few days after the sanctions were signed into law by President Obama, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao explained that ties with Tehran are a ‘fundamental component’ of Indian foreign policy and noted there has been a ‘convergence of views’ on important issues. And referring to the new US sanctions, she stressed that sanctions can have direct and adverse impacts on Indian companies and India’s energy security.

PJ Crowley, the US State Department spokesman, reacted to Rao’s address by stating that ‘business as usual’ with Iran by America’s friends and partners was no longer acceptable.

Afghanistan and Iran will test the nascent US-India strategic entente just as President Obama arrives in New Delhi. What should be an opportunity to articulate the next chapter in the bilateral partnership could well spell out its limits.

David J. Karl is president of the Asia Strategy Initiative, a consultancy based in Los Angeles. He served as project director of the Task Force on Enhancing India-US Cooperation in the Global Innovation Economy, jointly sponsored by the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

[hacksecrets]

India's INS Viraat Centaur-class aircraft carrier

An increasingly apparent reason for the Ministry of Defence’s slow decision-making on a second submarine production line for the Indian Navy is: the deep divisions within the navy over India’s submarine force. A debate rages between the submarine arm and the surface navy — particularly the dominant aviation wing — on whether the future lies in submarines or aircraft carriers. The navy’s submariners, meanwhile, debate the merits of conventional versus nuclear-powered submarines.

Slowed by these internal debates, India’s 30-Year Submarine Construction Plan, which the government approved in 1999, has languished. The 30-Year plan envisioned building 24 conventional submarines in India. Six were to be built from western technology and six with Russian collaboration; then Indian designers, having absorbed the best of both worlds, would build 12 submarines indigenously.

A senior retired admiral, reflecting the views of the submarine arm, blames the navy’s “aircraft carrier lobby” for the delay in building submarines. He alleges: “The last two naval chiefs (Admirals Arun Prakash and Sureesh Mehta) were aviators, who had no interest in using the navy’s limited budget for building submarines. So they exploited the division of opinion amongst submariners — the nuclear-powered versus conventional submarine debate — to push submarine building into the future.”

Nuclear-powered submarines are of two types: ballistic missile submarines (called SSBNs) and attack submarines (referred to as SSNs). Both are propelled by power from a miniature on-board reactor, but SSBNs also fire nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. SSBNs are not a part of the fighting navy; they constitute a country’s nuclear deterrent and fire their nuclear-tipped missiles on orders from the national leadership. SSNs operate as part of a naval fleet, moving under nuclear power and sinking surface warships with conventional torpedoes and missiles.

India's nuclear-powered submarine Arihant

Votaries of nuclear submarines, such as Rear Admiral (Retired) Raja Menon, argue that nuclear-powered submarines have a crucial advantage over conventional ones: endurance. While conventional (diesel-electric) submarines are more quiet and harder to detect while submerged, they are easily picked up when they surface to charge their batteries. Furthermore, they move slowly underwater, unlike nuclear submarines, which can remain submerged almost indefinitely. This allows a single nuclear submarine — travelling underwater to its patrol station and remaining there, undetected, for months — to do the job of multiple conventional submarines, which give their position away when they surface at regular intervals.

Admiral Menon explains, “A single SSN can dominate an area 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km) away as effectively as three conventional submarines, which require one submarine on station, another transiting to relieve it, and a third transiting back to refuel. If the patrol area is farther than 1,000 nautical miles, a single SSN does the job of five conventional submarines. That is why the US Navy fields an all-nuclear force.”

But Menon accepts that the Indian Navy would always need conventional submarines. India’s coastal waters are so shallow that SSNs, which typically weigh 4,000-5,000 tonnes, run the risk of scraping the bottom. Conventional submarines, which normally weigh around 1,500 tonnes, are needed for dominating the coastal areas.

China's Type 094 Jin Class nuclear-powered submarine

But the complexities of a nuclear submarine programme are evident from China’s current difficulties. China relies on its four primitive Han-class attack submarines (Type 091), having decided to close construction of the newer Shen-class (Type 093). Currently, China is grappling with a newer Type 095 SSN; five of these could be added “in the coming years”. Meanwhile, China shifted focus to a newer Jin-class (Type 094), of which the first SSBN “appears ready”, with four more under construction. (From Business Standard)

[hacksecrets]

India's claim of laser weapon development, an elaborate bluff?

Bent on becoming a regional superpower, India is pursuing ways to develop laser-guided anti-ballistic missiles.

Dubbed direct energy weapons and developed by the Defense Research and Development Organization, the new weapons are intended to kill incoming, hostile ballistic missiles "by bombarding them with subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves," the Defense News Web site reported.

In a planning document written earlier this month, India's Defense Ministry said it would place what it called its highest priorities on direct energy weapons for the next 15 years. Trials of the weapons are expected within the coming years should scientists stay on schedule with the development program.

Indian scientists say they have already begun testing. The defense dazzler was reported to be one of the first weapons put to test, engaging enemy aircraft and helicopters within a range of 6 miles.

This system alone, Defense News reported, will be inducted into the country's defense apparatus by 2012.

"Lasers are weapons of the future. We can, for instance, use laser beams to shoot down an enemy missile in its boost or terminal phase," The Times of India recently quoted Anil Kumar Maini, who heads the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization's Laser Science and Technology Center.

The direct energy weapons are capable of producing 25-kilowatt pulses that can destroy intruding missiles. They are said to be considered by the Indian navy for deployment on submarines and destroyers. They may also be mounted on combat aircraft and transport planes.

India's designs come amid efforts to establish a defense shield capable of knocking down hostile ballistic missiles.

US Airborne Laser Testbed



Boeing airborne laser system generator

U.S. scientists who have worked on military weapons expressed skepticism about India's claims. That's not surprising, since the Pentagon, for example, has invested some 30 years and billions of dollars in creating directed-energy weapons designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, and so far nothing has been deployed.

The U.S. Air Force has worked for years on the airborne laser, a megawatt-powered chemical laser housed on a Boeing jumbo jet that successfully shot down a missile target earlier this year in a test. But the Pentagon has shelved plans to deploy the weapon, citing concerns about its feasibility.

Laser dazzler

Laser weapons certainly have military applications, Mark Lewis, a former Air Force chief scientist said, but he doubted that India has made a huge breakthrough in the field. "I have never seen anything to suggest they are very far along," he said.

Peter Zimmerman, the former chief scientist of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, was equally dubious about the prospects of India possessing advanced laser weapons. "Laser dazzlers are straightforward," he said, noting that commercially available green lasers can be aimed at landing aircraft to distract the pilots.

But missile-destroying laser weapons are less likely, he said. "Laser weapons from India?" Zimmerman asked. "Probable nonsense."

[sunny]

Indian Lawmakers Approve Atomic Liability Bill

India's Parliament last week passed the divisive nuclear liability bill, paving the way for implementation of the landmark 2008 U.S.-Indian civilian atomic trade agreement, Reuters reported.

The Aug. 30 passage by Parliament's upper house occurred ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's planned November visit to the South Asian state.

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill received the support of India's leading opposition party, Bharatiya Janata, when the government acceded to stronger terms against nuclear suppliers and power plant operators that business groups said might limit development of India's burgeoning atomic energy industry.

Under the measure, plant operator liability in the event of an atomic incident was increased to about $320 million and the suppliers of nuclear materials and technology could also be sued (Prusty/Kuncheria, Reuters, Aug. 30).

Some experts believe the harsh measures could lead to weaker implementation of the atomic agreement that permits U.S. nuclear firms to export atomic technologies and materials to the nuclear-armed nation in exchange for India agreeing to open up its civilian atomic sites to international monitors, the New York Times reported.

A key foreign affairs initiative of the Bush administration, the 2008 deal ended New Delhi's decades-long status as a nuclear pariah. A number of other nations have also now established their own atomic trade deals with India.

International rules presently limit liability to the operators of nuclear power plants. By including language that leaves open the potential for suppliers to be held responsible for a mishap, the Indian legislation goes against worldwide norms.

"This makes the fruits of the Indo-U.S. deal go to waste," New Delhi-based security analyst G. Balachandran said. "It may well be the end of civil nuclear growth in India."

Leading Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Arun Jaitley defended the legislation, saying it permits a nuclear plant operator to file suit against suppliers only under specific conditions (Jim Yardley, New York Times, Aug. 30).

Sudhinder Thakur, executive director of the state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd., said in released comments that "no manufacturer, Indian or foreign, would be able to serve the nuclear power industry" in his nation due to the legislation, the Washington Times reported Sunday.

The liability bill will be "a significant deterrent not only to U.S. business but, equally importantly, to Indian and other international private business as well," said Ashley Tellis, who took part in the U.S.-Indian atomic deal negotiations.

"It's going to be interesting to see whether the Indians, now that they have passed this law, are going to stick to their guns or cave under possible U.S. pressure to reverse course," Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Executive Director Henry Sokolski said (Ashish Kumar Sen, Washington Times, Sept. 5).

[sunny]

Liberalisation strategies and poverty reduction in India

Author: Kaliappa Kalirajan, ANU

Developing countries embark on economic liberalisation to close the gap between their potential and actual economic performances. Liberalisation measures are aimed at eliminating structural and institutional rigidities which are a drag on economic performance, promoting export growth and attracting greater flows of FDI. Success induces further structural change through technology transfer, and sustains the overall economic performance of an economy. The outstanding example of this is the case of China.

Critics argue that liberalisation leads to increased inequality, which at times may even aggravate absolute poverty among some groups in certain regions. China again is an example, where income inequality is still a major concern for policymakers, though the pace of poverty reduction has been remarkable. In this context, it is worth examining whether the liberalisation strategies of India have contributed to significant reduction in poverty uniformly across all its States.

Focus is on the pace of poverty reduction across Indian States and its determinants during 1993-2000. The pace of poverty reduction can measured by the average annual rate of reduction achieved in 25 Indian States from 1993-94 to 1999-2000. The analytical modeling framework followed is conceptualised in Figure 1. The analysis acknowledges the problems of endogeneity of variables used for such studies and therefore, uses the technique of three-stage least squares methods with appropriate set of instrumental variables. The results of this study have strong policy implications towards increasing the pace of poverty reduction.

Figure 1: Mechanisms of poverty reduction through government intervention, including economic liberalisation.

The analysis identifies industrialisation (measured by the share of industry in GDP) and deprived population (the share of the economically deprived population in a state’s total population), as two important factors directly speeding up the pace of poverty reduction.

Both State and Central governments in India undertake wide ranging welfare schemes to provide safety nets for the deprived population. The deprived population is proxied by the share of scheduled caste population, an Indian population grouping, across States. Welfare expenditures have spillover effects and the entire State benefits from such government interventions. States with a larger share of the deprived population receive a higher allocation of resources, and are thus able to reduce poverty faster through spillover effects. Other liberalisation strategies, such as improving infrastructure and access to education, influence industrialisation and contribute directly to increasing the pace of poverty reduction.

The importance of governments’ efforts in looking after the deprived populations and sustaining economic liberalisation for promoting industrialisation need not be overemphasised here.

The results reveal that FDI is attracted to States with higher levels of industrialisation, lower agricultural share in the economy, higher literacy rate, and better infrastructure. The results, however, indicate that FDI flows do not directly influence the pace of poverty reduction. This is an important finding from a policy perspective because FDI has been found to contribute to reducing poverty directly in countries like China. In the case of India, FDI, thus far, has not contributed significantly to poverty reduction directly, but it has influenced the structural changes in the economy, particularly with respect to promoting industry.

Why is this so?

Only a small percentage of FDI flows went into export-oriented industries and the bulk went into import-competing or non-traded industries in this period. India’s experience has been different from other developing countries, where FDI has generally been central to the establishment of export-oriented industries. Hence, it appears that increases in FDI lack the capacity to increase India’s labour intensive exports, which could generate the unskilled jobs most required to reduce poverty faster.

The conclusions for policy making in India are as follows.

First, the pace of poverty reduction can be increased by sustaining and fine-tuning economic liberalisation measures, particularly with respect to FDI approvals to facilitate greater access and participation by the unskilled sections of the labour force.

Second, it is imperative for both the Central and State governments to promote infrastructure development and education, which facilitate industrial growth and FDI growth.

Finally, governments need to promote agricultural growth through implementing technological measures, such as water management and promotion of different crop varietals; and through encouraging cooperative/corporate farming to combat the issue of land fragmentation.

Implementation of these policy recommendations will help to ensure that liberalisation plays its full role in poverty reduction throughout India.

Kaliappa Kalirajan is Professor of Economics in the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University.

[sunny]

Japan’s nuclear pact with India

Author: Purnendra Jain, University of Adelaide

Japan is likely to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India as early as when India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Tokyo later this year. Media reports on Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada’s visit to New Delhi last month reveal that negotiations for an agreement are already under way. This is a remarkable development given Japan’s international pre-eminence as a voice against nuclear proliferation and its continued strong criticism of India’s nuclear policy, voiced most loudly in response to India’s nuclear tests in 1998.

Why has Japan changed its position?

Answers lie in a complex web of international and domestic imperatives that are geostrategic, political and economic; Japan itself is in the midst of profound transition at home and within the region.

Under the geostrategic climate of the Cold War, with Japan and India on opposite sides of the divide, Tokyo was generally uninterested in India. But in recent years Japan–India relations have taken an upward trajectory in many fields, from trade, investment and finance to aid and security. Of the many factors pushing the two countries closer, concerns about China’s economic and military resurgence are central. From the mid-2000s, we have seen a flurry of security and defence activities, most concretely through exchanges between high-level defence authorities, and joint statements including the security declaration signed in October 2008.

But the real propeller for Japan to consider nuclear cooperation with India is the US–India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement concluded in late 2008. This agreement allows the US to sell nuclear fuel and technology to India. Japan is a member of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that regulates the transfer of nuclear technology and lifted a three-decade global ban on nuclear trade with India just after the US–India agreement was signed. Yet Tokyo refrained from making any bilateral commitment to India.

American and French companies, along with Russian and South Korean companies, are now seeking to win contracts to build nuclear power plants in India. For it parts, India plans to build up to two dozen nuclear power plants to deal with its chronic shortage in electric power. But since Japanese firms are deeply entangled in the US and French nuclear industry, Japan is also an essential player.

Leading US suppliers such as GE (in consortium with Hitachi), Westinghouse (owned by Toshiba), and French company Areva (a joint venture with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) are eager for Japan to abolish existing nuclear and high-tech export controls that forbid Japanese companies from engaging in such transactions with India. Not surprisingly, both the US and France are pressing Japan to sign a deal with India.

Pressure also comes from inside Japan, as Japanese companies aim to expand their business into India’s multi-billion dollar nuclear energy markets. If they miss out, South Korean and Russian companies may secure most of the contracts – a situation unpalatable to a recessed Japan which has already lost the Indian market to South Korean companies in auto and white goods.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and its Atomic Energy Agency, have favoured a nuclear deal with India despite caution from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The scales appear to have now shifted towards the MET–JAEA position.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government also faces two mutually irreconcilable domestic constituencies: the influential business sector pushing for nuclear cooperation with India, and the strong anti-nuclear and pacifist lobby that opposes this concession to a country that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

External pressure and domestic demand from powerful business groups have moved the Kan government towards the deal with India. At the same time, Tokyo will seek assurance from New Delhi that it will refrain from conducting nuclear tests. India is likely to accept the same terms of agreement it accepted with the US, that is, India will not conduct any nuclear tests and will return all material and equipment if it reneges.

Timing depends upon the DPJ presidential election in mid-September, which will determine whether Kan continues as Prime Minister. If Ichiro Ozawa replaces him, concluding the agreement may take longer, according to sources in Japan.

Australia will inevitably be drawn into this ballgame, since it will be pressured to reconsider its ban on uranium sales to India. If even the highly sensitive and nuclear-allergic Japan, which itself has suffered the consequences of nuclear bombings, makes an exception for India, what is to stop Canberra following its US and Japanese security partners and making this deal.

[sunny]

Clinton, Indian FM discuss Obama's visit to India in November, climate change and Afghanistan

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna say President Barack Obama's visit to India in November will be a "defining moment" in ties between the countries.

That is according to Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake, who briefed reporters by conference call on a Clinton-Krishna meeting Monday on the sidelines of a United Nations summit.

Blake says Clinton and Krishna discussed Afghanistan, floods in Pakistan, climate change talks, U.S.-Indian nuclear co-operation and sanctions on Iran.

Obama's visit is meant partly to ease Indians' fears that their country is slipping behind rivals China and Pakistan in U.S. foreign policy priorities.

[sunny]

India's New Identification Efforts Aimed at the Poor

A child sits in front of a garbage dump on World Poverty Day in Hyderabad, India, 17 October 2007 (FILE).

India has formally launched an ambitious program to provide identification numbers to its population. Authorities say they plan to put ID cards in the hands of 100 million of India's poorest citizens within months, making it easier for them to access basic services.

Indian officials set a festive mood for the new plan, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, leader of the dominant Congress Party, personally handing out the first identification cards to villagers in Maharashtra state. The government has set an ambitious deadline, aiming to provide hundreds of millions of people with a unique 12-digit number within just a few years.

Officials say the numbers and the data profiles behind them will offer a fast track for India's poorest citizens to benefit from a wide range of services, from food distribution to banking.

The project is a top priority for the government, says Prime Minister Singh, adding that India's most economically and socially backward citizens will derive the maximum benefit from the new plan.

The poorest of the poor in India frequently have difficulty obtaining the right paperwork to certify their identity, and receive government benefits. The new digitally encoded ID cards contain key biographical data, backed up by fingerprint and retinal scans.

Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi says the objective is not just progress, but inclusiveness of everyone in the country. Gandhi said officials are aware the challenges of the 21st century cannot be overcome by old ideas and methods. The goal, she says, is to empower the people.

India leveraged its human talents in information technology to advance the identification program. The government appointed billionaire founder of Infosys Corporation, Nandan Nilekani, to lead the initiative. He, in turn, recruited Indian tech talent from companies around the world to volunteer their time on the project.