India Joins Nuclear Market

figona brings news that India will be allowed to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A waiver was approved yesterday that provided an exception to the requirements that India sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. This means India will be able to buy nuclear fuel from the world market and purchase reactors from the US, France, and Russia; something it has been unable to do since it began nuclear testing in 1974 (which inspired the creation of the NSG). The waiver does not include terms to cut off access if India resumes nuclear testing, but the US Congress drafted a letter stating their willingness to do so. Opponents of the waiver have called it a "non-proliferation disaster."

Comments

Place your bets now!

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

How many minutes until Pakistan demands the same treatment?

Re:Place your bets now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlikely. A.Q.Khan's admitted proliferation is not a simple matter.

Re:Place your bets now!

[oxygen_deprived]

Geopolitically, India has long been dehyphenated from Pakistan. Pakistan doesnt need to demand the same treatment because China has been supplying them whatever they want in terms of nuke tech. Even if they do, how does it change anything ? They are a failed state where the military is hand in glove with taliban and terrorists, and no NSG state in its right mind would agree to such a thing for Pakistan.

Re:Place your bets now!

[Hurricane78]

What the fuck do you know about Pakistan and India? A whooping(sic) can of shit!

India and Pakistan (and in fact Bangladesh too) are the same people! They got divided by the British empire over the ambiguous decision of calling the zone with mostly Muslims "Pakistan". Now in fact, there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan, and India always was a multi-religious country.

It's the whole bullshit of external empires separating areas into "countries", that originally was the land of intertwined tribes. Those tribes lived side-by-side. And nowadays it's expected that they beat each other up over some made-up bullshit!

It's the same as my father had to experience and caused the death and torture of my uncles and my grandpa in Afghanistan. There the Soviet Union and the USA fought for resources... The Soviets did it by invasion. And the USA did it by giving the Afghanis weapons to fight them. But in fact, nobody cared for the people. Nowadays - after the soviets are gone - the USA *had* to invade Afghanistan, because one of *their own people* turned against them and was supposed to hide there. While in fact he's in USA's allied countries until this day, but they can't attack those countries, because they have the oil *and* the cash, and china supporting them by buying the oil. So the USA can't force those countries to sell to the USA anymore. (Hence the now normalized gas prices in the USA.)
So now the Afghanis have a nearly complete population of people that have never seen anything else than war, children crippled by mines and hate.

And you expect other countries not to hate you(r government)???

So please: If you haven't got a clue, STFU and stay out of other people's business and countries, and stop lamenting about some bullshit intrigues between those countries that your leaders told you!!!

Just so you don't thing I'm trolling here: I am in fact half Afghani and half Luxemburgish, and I like Americans like the ones here on Slashdot, the ones like Jon Steward, and many more. But seriously: Fix your government issues. Shoot people who admit openly that they want to cut the education budget, people who act based on superstition and criminal crooks fucking your constitution system. It's your country! (In fact most countries would be better off if they followed those rules :)

Re:Place your bets now!

[XchristX]

You are mostly right, of course. But keep in mind that politics, ethnocentrism and religious (primarily Islamic) mania has divided the populations of South Asia for some centuries now. The British, much like the Portuguese in Africa, merely exploited divisions that were already present and aggrandized them (they didn't create those divisions) for their own purposes (keep the sheeple fighting each other so they don't notice us while we take over their land, eh wot old chap?)

India mostly survived the pressures of decolonization with it's collective skin intact. B'desh and Pak were less fortunate. Poor Afghanistan has been screwed over by all this most of all.

Re:Place your bets now!

[XchristX]

The only solution I see is for India to reabsorb Pakistan and Bangladesh

Arre pagal ho gaya hai kya?? Are you fucking insane? India is still very much a developing country with it's own internal issues and problems. You want us to "absorb" a recalcitrant, hostile, genocidal population that is taught to hate before it is taught to read and are ideologically indoctrinated to want our destruction?

Why? We should keep as much distance between us and them as possible and cultivate better relations with western countries instead, focus more intensely on poverty reduction, reducing oil dependency, infrastructure and the anti-AIDS stuff, beef up our miltary to protect our borders and stamp illegal immigration from Nepal and B'Desh, and all that (imagine shouldering those burdens for the starving millions in B'Desh, there are enough of our brothers starving on our own soil).

Pakistan won't last long anyway. Already, East Pakistan broke away, Waziristan declared independence just a few years ago and Balochistan insurgency is in full swing after Nawaab Akbar Bugti has been declared a Shiite "Shaheed' (Islamic martyr) after the Sunni-dominated Pakistan army assassinated him. The Muttahida Qaumi movement is rising in Sindh. Now that Musharraf the dictator is out of the picture they will hold "democratic" (ie staged) referendum, effectively "elect" (ie dragoon) a bunch of Islamic nutters to power like they did with Nawaz Sharif, and start blowing each other up with renewed intensity. India cannot afford to deal with THAT can of worms. Let Pak be America's problem, and Bangladesh remain the royal shithole that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party made it into. We should focus on developing our own country into a stronger and more prosperous nation.

Empire building==bad idea.
Nation building==good idea.

Re:Place your bets now!

[XchristX]

Such as?

such as Aligarh , Deoband, Bengal, Western Gujarat. In contrast, areas in Pakistan with large Hindu populations in Sindh have been completely cleansed of them.

We've always known you wanted our country. India is an expansionist power that has swallowed up huge territories including Hyderabad, Junagarh, Siachen, Sikkim, Goa, Daman, Diu, and Kashmir. But you will never get Pakistan except over our dead bodies - and yours, once the gamma-radiation-emitting isotopes fall on your land, making it uninhabitable and poisoning it for centuries. Never, as long as we have the strength to fight and defend our beloved country, you will not not get it. Never!

Pakistan is a genocidal Islamic theocracy, combined with a Punjabi-dominated racist ethnocracy that has murdered 3 million Hindus in Bangladesh

http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/

and presently institutionally engages in horrific levels of persecution of Hindu and Christian minorities in their savage little Islamofascist country

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6367773.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1625976.stm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273075,00.html
http://www.domini.org/openbook/pak20020925.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/nyregion/24missionary.html?_r=2&%20%20%20%20%20%20%20oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The USCIRF denotes Pakistan as a "country of particular concern" for precisely this (well, primarily for the Sangla Hill genocide of Pakistani Christians carried out by the Islamic fascist regime in 2001), as well as charming "Huddood Laws" that let rapists of women go free in the name of Islam, and Hasba bills that allow for public floggings and stonings.

We do not want to have anything to do with this failed genocidal state run by Punjabi Sunni Muslim ethnocrats who have captured and murdered hundreds of thousands Sindhis, Baloch and Pashtun minorities, not to mention Hindus, christians and Sikhs. We just want to watch these people kill each other in the name of a violent totalitarian religion that teaches 3 year old children to hate Jews Christians and Hindus before they teach them math.

Re:Place your bets now!

[slashdotlurker]

The only solution I see is for India to reabsorb Pakistan and Bangladesh (Given the much faster population growth that has happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh this would result in a country that is 45% Muslim) and modernise their economies so people are more interested in buying KFC at malls than at blowing up other people in the name of religion. Frankly once we get rid of the feudal elite in Pakistan the Pakistani people would be much happier under Secular Indian rule than the Landlord-Army mafia they live under nowadays. I hope my Afghan friend understands I do know a bit about these issues.

As someone who has lived and worked in India for a few years, I think that this prescription is at once naive, impractical and belongs in the realm of "won't happen".
While it is true that Muslims and non-Muslims of India have by and large lived with each other for centuries, and that Muslims have in the past ruled (and with one or two exceptions) terrorized the rest, the levels of dislike between Indian non-Muslims (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and even Christians) and non-Indian Muslims (Pakistani and Bangladeshi) are deep and centuries old. I would even go as far as to say that levels of hatred between many north Indian non-Muslims (especially Sikhs) and Pakistani Muslims exceed the levels of animosity I have seen between Jews and Muslims (and yes, I have lived in the middle east as well). At best, there is hearty distrust and long list of unsettled scores. If what you suggest were to be implemented, they would have a major genocide on their hands that would make Rwanda and Bosnia look like a walk in the park.
To add to this, most Indians I know (and I did ask this question many times when I was there) would not want Pakistan and Bangladesh back. Already illegal immigration from Bangladesh is a serious law and order and social problem in India. The way they see it, they have played by the rules for 60 years, and are reaping the benefits of focusing on education etc., and the trouble-making Pakistanis (especially) can go **** themselves (paraphrasing the words of a fairly senior IT manager at Infosys I interviewed once). After current realities of worldwide Islamic terrorism (about which Indians have bitterly complained for years, long before these became our problems), the chances of such attitudes changing are at best miniscule. They may share many languages, food and a great deal of history, but they also share a sincere and deep loathing of each other.
We do need to rescue Pakistan from the effects of the succession of bad choices they have made over the decades, but I do not think we can look to the Indians to help us on this.

My government is hypocritical

[morgan_greywolf]

As a U.S. citizen, I must say that I am utterly embarrased at the actions of my government. On the one hand, there's no way that they'll let Iran or North Korea even so much as attempt to build a reactor, but as soon as India wants on the scene, oh well, no problem. After all, we wouldn't want them to cut us off from that practically free labor force, right?

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hypocritical to allow India and not allow Iran or North Korea, but it was already hypocritical to form a club with the goal of making it hard for other nations (including India) once one has the technology for own use: Do as we say, not as we do?

Re:My government is hypocritical

[iNaya]

Indians don't go around chanting "Death to America" for starters, nor do they have a crazy self-indulging senseless control freak for the head of their government. India has a tendency to honour international agreements, while the DPRK tends to flout them over and over again.

Besides, anyone has a right to sell something (or not) to someone for whatever reason they have. If I decide I don't want the USA to have any of my little pink bunnies, while letting the UK have them, what's wrong with that? My decision.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Shakrai]

On the one hand, there's no way that they'll let Iran or North Korea even so much as attempt to build a reactor, but as soon as India wants on the scene

And how many Japanese citizens has India captured and held against their will in the last few decades? How many times have they threatened to wipe a neighbor off the map?

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Penguinisto]

Err, what?

India has had nuclear weaponry since the 1960's (or '70s?). Iran probably doesn't have a nuclear weapon, and North Korea may or may not have one.

Besides, when given a choice between a relatively peaceful nation that already has nuclear weapons (and the means to deliver them), and arguably hostile regimes who are trying to lay hands on one?

In short - you must be joking, man.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, anyone has a right to sell something (or not) to someone for whatever reason they have.

Good idea. You get to work getting the countries to cancel all their treaties, and I'll start investing in the companies that process fuel and build reactors. Your pink bunnies may have been a cute analogy, but you aren't the final say in whether they get seized at the port or not.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[gregbot9000]

You're an idiot. I'm sure you'd say it's hypocritical to only let the psycho kid have safety scissors too? Iran, North Korea, are balls to the walls nuts. We try hard not to let them have nukes because THEY WOULD USE THEM. Last I checked, India is doing better as far as democracy then some of the other "BIG" countries that have recently invaded a smaller one.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[caffeinemessiah]

How isnt India hostile? They have nukes pointed at Pakistan and Pakistan has nukes pointed at them. They are CONSTANTLY fighting over Kashmir. This could be percieved as an escalation or at least a way to unbalance the MAD equation in that part of the world.

Nukes pointed at country X....check.
Country X has nukes pointer at them...check.
Constantly fighting over country Y....check.

Funny...the US seems to fit that bill for being "hostile" pretty well too. Let's not forget that India is a large, stable, secular democracy with a decent non-proliferation record in spite of not having signed the NPT, has a strong economic interest in remaining peaceful and friendly with China and the U.S., and is consenting to international oversight of nuclear facilities as part of this deal.

Since India has the toys and is much more stable than Pakistan,NK and Iran, it's better that they place nice than if they don't. This is the safest, most practical and pragmatic way of ensuring that.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Shakrai]

You realize that the article you linked ends by saying that he did say Israel should be wiped off the map, right?

I'll grant you that he didn't say that his country should be the one doing the wiping. There's still a huge difference between a stable democracy (India) and a country where the religious leadership holds a veto over everything (including who can run for office) and which denies the right of one of it's neighbors to exist.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[morgan_greywolf]

Indians don't go around chanting "Death to America" for starters

How do you know? Have you been to India? Just because the press shows some propoganda about Iran and none for India doesn't mean it doesn't happen in India.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[gad_zuki!]

Secular? No country with a caste system is secular.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many Japanese citizens has India captured and held against their will in the last few decades? How many times have they threatened to wipe a neighbor off the map?

How many foreign nationals have the CIA captured and held against their will, without trial, in secret prisons? How many times has the U.S. threatened destruction on sovereign nations?

The hypocrisy comes from the U.S. holding the rest of the world to a standard it itself is unwilling to meet. And make no mistake, the U.S. poses a greater danger to world stability than does North Korea. Sure, North Korea would wreck the world if they had the means to do so, but they do not. The U.S. does have the means, and threatens to use it each and every day.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Kenrod]

Iran is not a democracy since its federal government can disqualify any candidate for any reason and often does.

It is a fascist theocracy that is actively exporting its ideology. It is the worst kind of government to have a nuclear weapon.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Kenrod]

It's only hypocritical if you consider all governments to be equally responsible and trustworthy on the international stage.

Which is nonsense, not all countries are created equal. Iran's government was created by a violent theocratic revolution and continues to be that to this day. North Korea was created in a violent Stalinist revolution and continues to be that to this day.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[iNaya]

I've been almost everywhere in South and East Asia. Never been Europe or the Americas though, maybe they shout "Death to America" over there...

I can see no reason why a news organisation would show people in the Middle East shouting death to America, but wouldn't show it if it happened in India. I'm pretty sure it would. It would certainly be a lot more interesting if it happened in India.

But Indians seem more concerned with their internal problems and the cause, rather than concerning themselves with whether it was something the Americans/Europeans did. Which is a complex which occurs a lot in China (generally the newspapers / commentators) and Korea (generally random protests).

And yes I've been to India, Korea and China. All for reasonable amounts of time (over a year each). I have also met a great deal of Iranians, none of whom wished death to America.

And I've never ever seen any Western recorded footage of people in Iran shouting "Death to America", perhaps you should look up the facts of that incident. It was a country wide chant, and it was recorded officially by various Arab channels. It's their government that's crazy, but the Iranians I've met seem much more friendly than most Americans I've met.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Firethorn]

Secular? No country with a caste system is secular.

You still haven't broken the analogy. Back during the cold war we had a caste system as well, remember? It was based on the color of your skin.

By the same token, India is fighting their own caste system. Arguably it's a lot like our fight against discrimination; you run into problems that even with official government mandates that the people in the government positions to enforce that mandate are for the discrimination, so frequently ignore said mandates. Just like in our case, it's going to take generations, and it doesn't help that their caste system has been around longer than our country.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[oldhack]

The US was established with a violent revolution. N Korea was set up by the Soviet Union just like S Korea was set up by the US - no violence.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[Burz]

Oh, so he's just a holocaust denier instead? Well, let's start shipping him some uranium! What could possibly go wrong?

I should have known better than to use a US news outlet to make my point. FWIW, I've only read about him expressing a brief skepticism toward the holocaust, and later on acknowledging that the holocaust was real on a number of occasions.

That said, I don't like Ahmadinejad or many of his policies. But the false hysteria being drummed up to justify war is even worse.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[gad_zuki!]

>India is doing better as far as democracy then some of the other "BIG" countries that have recently invaded a smaller one.

So? The only country to use nuclear weapons in a war is a democracy. Ever hear of WWII? The idea that democracy means pacifist anti-nuke is ridiculous.

Re:My government is hypocritical

[XchristX]

Er, the casteism isn't state policy in India. It's a social malaise. You could just as easily say that the US isn;t a secular country because of discrimination against non-Christian minorities (and you would be wrong).

Dunno...

[Penguinisto]

India is already capable of building nuclear weapons, and are (theoretically) more than able to sell that tech to the highest bidders if they desired (I honestly don't see them doing so - just saying they can).

I'd be a hell of a lot more worried about Iran (which has arguably sponsored terrorism) than India (which has been nothing but friendly towards anyone who isn't Pakistan, and the latter for obvious reasons). While yes things may change, I just don't see India as being the type to sell nuclear anything, to anyone, in the foreseeable future.

Iran OTOH? Well, what are the non-proliferation folks doing about that? Not much, from the looks of it. If they want to concentrate their efforts in any particular direction, I'd have them staring a bit more to the west of India...

/P

Re:Dunno...

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree .. people who put India in the same category as those Islamic fanatic nations just because some of its citizens wear turbans and keep beard are completely ignorant. India is a multicultural multireligious pluraristic socieity. Also India is constitutinally SECULAR. Yes sometimes there are sporadic incidents of intolerance and violence but what else can you expect when the country has just been independent for 60 years, have been robbed by its colonial masters for centuries and still is a fully functioning democracy with the second largest population in the world? You cannot compare what India has contrbuted towards peace in earth (hint: a half naked guy who shook the british empire and who has been inspiration for many others) with what Pakistan had to offer. India needs the nuclear fuel to produce cheap energy.. its too hot out there and they all need the air conditioning just like you do.

Histrory Repeating Itself, Again, and Again, ...

[arthurpaliden]

Will the Americans never learn (No because they never study histroy, even their own, Iraq, Afganistan .. any one). The only reason they are doing this is because they want to use India to keep Pakistan in check. This will work fine untill India desides to go its own way and thumbs their one billion noses at the United States. Of course by then it will have all the technology they need not to mention a growing economy.

Re:Why Is India Not a Signatory?

[arthurpaliden]

For the same reason that the United States will not sign the land mine treaty or the law of the sea treaty. National self intrest.

Get real

[WindBourne]

ALL Nuclear powers have first strike policies. ALL OF THEM. Basically, if they are being overrun by another country, they will use them. This include USA, Russia, China, England, France, Israel, and I am quite sure India and Pakistan. In fact, if not for the nukes, I suspect that one of china, India, and Pakistan would have invaded the other by now. As it was, China had no issues with attacking India before they had the bomb. They now do a lot of subtle manipulation esp. on the eastern state, and now on the northerns.

Re:Get real

[ghoul]

Look the Indian conventional army is much bigger and better equipped than the Pakistani one so India would never use a nuclear first strike against Pakistan. The Chinese military is stronger than India's but most of it is focussed against Japan and Taiwan. The forces facing against India in Tibet (India has a border with Tibet not China) are again inferior to the Indian forces on the eastern front. So India is in no danger of being overrun. The Nukes ensure that China or Pakistan wont be tempted to do a first strike themselves. Now you might say how about USA? Again USA might have a bigger military but the assets they can bring to the Indian Ocean are again inferior to what India has off its coast. Basically it takes a much smaller force to defend than to attack. So the nukes are basically there so that no country can do what USA did to India in 1971 i.e. Sent the USS Kitty Hawk into the Bay of Bengal with a message withdraw from Bangladesh or we nuke Calcutta. Nuclear blackmail doesnt work if the other side has nukes too. For the rest India has no interest in fighting a nuclear war and nor does it want to be a global cop like the Western nations so it doesnt need a first strike policy.

Re:Sweet! I'll take 5

[VernonNemitz]

While intended to be humorous, that title is actually a CRITICAL point. Remember Global Warming and Carbon emissions? Isn't switching to nuclear supposed to be a solution to that problem? How can we do that globally and NOT proliferate?

I suppose it depends on the type of "nuclear". Suppose we required all the Big Oil companies to invest in Nuclear Fusion?

Re:India does not need to buy anything

[nietsch]

The thorium reactor described in the article you linked to does use plutonium to overcome a problem with pure thorium reactors. Thorium gets mutated to proactinum that decays later to Uranium-233, the uranium is fissle, but the proactinum not and will smother the chain-reaction. Using plutonium gives enough oompf to keep the reaction running until the proactinum has decayed enough. But plutonium also means you will have a lot of long-halflife actinides in your waste, which is not so good.
But you are right that thorium is not a production ready technology yet. But by buying old technology from the west it might have less money to spend on R&D for cheaper thorium processes. That is just economics, unfortunately.

(and no I am not a nuclear scientist, I just play one on /.)

its not the revolution, its what's established

[unity100]

afterwards, that matters.

in u.s. and france, democratic pluralist regimes were established, based on human rights concepts outlined and developed by 18th century enlightenment. (btw, you are still basing your entire society on these even today).