Slashdot Mirror
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."
How many minutes until Pakistan demands the same treatment?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Any danger the arsenal represents probably wouldn't even double if it increased 100 fold. Nuclear fuel is something the world needs right now, if all the hype about global warming is as bad as they say it is. Not only that, but cheaper nuclear fuel -> cheaper power -> better economy -> less poverty.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
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.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
People in the US especially seem to think of India in terms of snake charmers and cheap IT, forgetting that we are the second largest nation on earth, with genuine security concerns.
With China sitting to our east and making noises (usually, very loud noises) and a particularly unstable Pakistan to the west who got most of their nuclear tech from China, we really don't have a choice.
Besides which, far too many other pieces of tech cannot be sold to India because they may kinda sorta have some possible application in one corner of the fine art of nuclear weapons manufacture. This can finally stop now.
Finally, the whole deal means that we can now start having safety equipment for our nuclear program, which we haven't been able to obtain for years now.
Anyway, you probably don't know the amount of flak the government has taken over this deal... There's talk from lots of sides about "selling our sovereignty", because there will now be periodic inspections of all nuclear facilities by the IAEA.
Anyway, Arbitrarily restricting possession of nuclear weapons to those nations that tested before 1967 is not exactly a solid foundation for the NPT. It should have been quite blindingly obvious right back then that several nations, even reasonably stable ones, would have severe reservations about such an imbalanced treaty.
Because the NPT is a biased treaty of HAVES and HAVE NOTS. It basically says that the countries that HAVE nuclear weapons can continue to have them forever and those that don't can never have them forever, thereby creating a hierarchy of powers. India rejects this as highly discriminatory and wants a world where all nuclear weapons are eliminated. Since that sounds impossible, India went ahead with its nuclear program to defend against its neighbours like China and Pakistan.
Hi friend
we are having nuclears for the cheapest prices
please telling us number of many you like
warm regards,
Praktah Andgambl
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
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.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
The problem with Thorium is that it's a decade or two away from commercial use. India needs power NOW. And oh, they aren't mothballing their Thorium programme -- if anything progress has been good.
Go somewhere random