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So, India got the NSG waiver! Singh is now the King of the World! Let's air drop leaflets of the NSG Draft text in the flood affected areas.

We would have gone through the NSG phase without much fuss, except for the explosive leak of a "secret letter". Until that happened, questioning the N-Deal would make you a pariah. But a funny thing happened, a secret letter was "leaked" and the ensuing confusion proved beyond doubt that no "intellectual" in India had really done a thorough job of thinking through the whole thing. Needless to say there will be lots of new interpretations and angles to cover this up, but let's not kid ourselves.

The TOI screencap, taken just after the expose, amply demonstrates this as does this NDTV show. We especially like the screencap, it completely summarizes the serious problems we can potentially run into - yeah, China, land acquisition, environmental protests. It shows utter chaos and confusion amid the TOI editorial staff. Extremely alarmed that this can cause serious trouble to their beloved party, they immediately put up that headline blaming Bush. That explains all the troubles in the world these days, doesn't it? Curiously though, this was the guy who pushed for the N-Deal in the first place. Are we missing something here? Some people have claimed that the leak itself was a ploy to allay the fears of NSG members. This is too cynical and conspiratorial a view of the world.

The economic implications of the deal has been conspicuous by its absence in all the debates on the issue. Nuclear power is simply not economical, unless you assign an arbitrary high value to environmental impacts. Refer to this MIT study and this WSJ article. Even the breaking news on yahoo says this:

Rood said it would help meet India's growing energy needs while helping the developing country — a major polluter — cut back on harmful emissions that experts warn are contributing to global warming.

It is not clear if the US or Western nations will subsidize the high costs of Nuclear Power plants by extending the carbon credit logic.

People like the deal for different reasons. We have essentially adopted a head in the sand approach for getting something of arbitrary value proposition in exchange for unknown handicaps on our strategic programs.

[Update]

Every American expert we heard so far on CNN-IBN or NDTV are saying "clean energy". No one has said anything about "economical energy". For instance this CNN-IBN segment.

(to be continued ......)