I forgot to mention that Siddharth Varadarajan has an very detailed article in the Hindu concerning the separation plan and the text of the implementation agreement between the US and India.
The bottom line, according to Varadarajan, is that India has created two “strategic hubs”: the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research that will comprise the largest portion of the military complex:
India, it says, will include in the civilian list “only those facilities offered for safeguards that, after separation, will no longer be engaged in activities of strategic significance.” At the same time, “a facility will be excluded from the civilian list if it is located in a larger hub of strategic significance, notwithstanding the fact that it may not be normally engaged in activities of strategic significance.”
Thus, all facilities run in the two strategic hubs—the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam—belong to this category, including their fuel fabrication, reprocessing and uranium and boron enrichment facilities, as well as the Beryllium Machining Facility. The uranium enrichment facilities at Rattehalli will similarly remain unsafeguarded as will the heavy water plants at Baroda, Thalcher, Nangal, Manuguru and Kota.
Both “hubs” are on the BIS Entity List, in case you are wondering.
Akash | March 12, 2006
A very relevant article for the blog, I guess.
From the New York Times
By MADHUR JAFFREY
Published: March 12, 2006
WHATEVER anyone else might say, America’s new nuclear and trade pact with India is a win-win deal. India gets nuclear fuel for its energy needs and America, doing far better in what might be called a stealth victory, finally gets mangoes.
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Edel Rodriguez
Not those pleasantly hued but lifeless rocks that pass as mangoes in most American grocery stores. Definitely not the fibrous, unyielding, supersized Florida creations that boast long shelf life and easy handling and shipping but little else. They might hint at possibilities but provide no satisfaction.
No. What America will be getting is the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavors acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting. I can just see them arriving at the ports: hundreds of wide baskets lined with straw, the mangoes nestling in the center like eggs lolling in their nests.
These mangoes will be seasonal. Americans will learn to wait for them, just as Indians do. They cannot be pushed to grow in hothouses. Indian mango trees, many of them hundreds of years old (and some reputed to be thousands of years old) need to breathe the same free, fresh air Indians breathe and live through India’s three main seasons: summer, the monsoons and winter. Only then will they deign to bear fruit.
They bear their pendulous fruit idiosyncratically, sometimes on one side, sometimes on another and some years, if they are so inclined, not at all. One generous tree in Chandigarh bore about 30,000 pounds of mangoes every year for 150 years until it was hit by lightning. Then it just fell over.
The mango season begins in early May (but alas, the bureaucracy won’t move fast enough for us to get them this year). If they come in sufficient quantities, Americans might well learn to associate them with late spring. I can just see a sentence that my grandchild, or yours, might write: “It was the time of cherry blossoms and Indian mangoes ….”
Under this new arrangement, reasonably honest Indian-Americans will no longer have to turn into furtive smugglers to bring mangoes into the country. The one attempt I made was quite unsuccessful. A customs inspector, possibly noting my shifty eyes, asked me quite directly, “Are you carrying any mangoes?” Unable to lie, I had to reply in the affirmative. The mangoes were confiscated.
This would have been bearable had I not been able to peep through a slight crack in the customs office door, a few moments later. The officers were cutting up the mangoes and eating them. That hurt.
Mangoes seem to have originated in prehistory in the northeastern forests that lie near India’s border with Myanmar. Buddha was known to have rested under their shady trees. Emperor Akbar (the third of the grand Moguls, ruling from 1556 to 1605), accelerated the process of planting and grafting by laying out a garden with 100,000 trees. The aim in India had always been to get sweet, melt-in-the-mouth, juicy mangoes with as little stringy fiber as possible.
And that is what India has now. Whether you buy the sweet-and-sour pale-skinned langras of Varanasi or the intensely yellow, sweet dussehris of Lucknow or the satiny, heavenly Alphonsos of Ratnagiri near Bombay, what you will be getting are mangoes that man and nature have perfected together. When these same mangoes entered Florida in the 19th century, they were mainly dismissed as “yard” mangoes. Too soft for shipping, they were considered lacking in commercial qualities. So all the fiber that had been bred out of them over thousands of years was bred right back, giving America the hard, pale rocks we see in stores today.
When you get your first Indian mango, perhaps an Alphonso, just hold it in your hand and admire its blushes of reds, yellows and greens. Breathe in its aroma, which will reach out to you through its skin. If it is hard, wrap it in newspaper and set it aside, unrefrigerated, until it yields very slightly to the touch. Mangoes are never “tree-ripened.” The hand of man is needed to coax them to their peak. Wash them and refrigerate them. Then when you are ready, tie a napkin around your neck, peel, slice and eat.
Madhur Jaffrey is an actress and the author of “From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail” and the forthcoming memoir, “Climbing the Mango Trees.”
Akash | March 12, 2006
And on a more serious note:
Our Opportunity With India
Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/ju5d5
By Condoleezza Rice
Monday, March 13, 2006; Page A15
The week before last President Bush concluded a historic agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, a rising democratic power in a dynamic Asia. This agreement is a strategic achievement: It will strengthen international security. It will enhance energy security and environmental protection. It will foster economic and technological development. And it will help transform the partnership between the world’s oldest and the world’s largest democracy.
First, our agreement with India will make our future more secure, by expanding the reach of the international nonproliferation regime. The International Atomic Energy Agency would gain access to India’s civilian nuclear program that it currently does not have. Recognizing this, the IAEA’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has joined leaders in France and the United Kingdom to welcome our agreement. He called it “a milestone, timely for ongoing efforts to consolidate the non-proliferation regime, combat nuclear terrorism and strengthen nuclear safety.”
Our agreement with India is unique because India is unique. India is a democracy, where citizens of many ethnicities and faiths cooperate in peace and freedom. India’s civilian government functions transparently and accountably. It is fighting terrorism and extremism, and it has a 30-year record of responsible behavior on nonproliferation matters.
Aspiring proliferators such as North Korea or Iran may seek to draw connections between themselves and India, but their rhetoric rings hollow. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism that has violated its own commitments and is defying the international community’s efforts to contain its nuclear ambitions. North Korea, the least transparent country in the world, threatens its neighbors and proliferates weapons. There is simply no comparison between the Iranian or North Korean regimes and India.
The world has known for some time that India has nuclear weapons, but our agreement will not enhance its capacity to make more. Under the agreement, India will separate its civilian and military nuclear programs for the first time. It will place two-thirds of its existing reactors, and about 65 percent of its generating power, under permanent safeguards, with international verification—again, for the first time ever. This same transparent oversight will also apply to all of India’s future civilian reactors, both thermal and breeder. Our sale of nuclear material or technology would benefit only India’s civilian reactors, which would also be eligible for international cooperation from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Second, our agreement is good for energy security. India, a nation of a billion people, has a massive appetite for energy to meet its growing development needs. Civilian nuclear energy will make it less reliant on unstable sources of oil and gas. Our agreement will allow India to contribute to and share in the advanced technology that is needed for the future development of nuclear energy. And because nuclear energy is cleaner than fossil fuels, our agreement will also benefit the environment. A threefold increase in Indian nuclear capacity by 2015 would reduce India’s projected annual CO2emissions by more than 170 million tons, about the current total emissions of the Netherlands.
Third, our agreement is good for American jobs, because it opens the door to civilian nuclear trade and cooperation between our nations. India plans to import eight nuclear reactors by 2012. If U.S. companies win just two of those reactor contracts, it will mean thousands of new jobs for American workers. We plan to expand our civilian nuclear partnership to research and development, drawing on India’s technological expertise to promote a global renaissance in safe and clean nuclear power.
Finally, our civilian nuclear agreement is an essential step toward our goal of transforming America’s partnership with India. For too long during the past century, differences over domestic policies and international purposes kept India and the United States estranged. But with the end of the Cold War, the rise of the global economy and changing demographics in both of our countries, new opportunities have arisen for a partnership between our two great democracies. As President Bush said in New Delhi this month, “India in the 21st century is a natural partner of the United States because we are brothers in the cause of human liberty.”
Under the president’s leadership, we are beginning to realize the full promise of our relationship with India, in fields as diverse as agriculture and health, commerce and defense, science and technology, and education and exchange. Over 65,000 Americans live in India, attracted by its growing economy and the richness of its culture. There are more than 2 million people of Indian origin in the United States, many of whom are U.S. citizens. More Indians study in our universities than students from any other nation. Our civilian nuclear agreement is a critical contribution to the stronger, more enduring partnership that we are building.
We are consulting extensively with Congress as we seek to amend the laws needed to implement the agreement. This is an opportunity that should not be missed. Looking back decades from now, we will recognize this moment as the time when America invested the strategic capital needed to recast its relationship with India. As the nations of Asia continue their dramatic rise in a rapidly changing region, a thriving, democratic India will be a pillar of Asia’s progress, shaping its development for decades. This is a future that America wants to share with India, and there is not a moment to lose.
The writer is secretary of state.