The Times of India's pathetic cover up of the Nuclear Deal fiasco

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When even trusted cheerleaders start expressing doubts, you know the deal has gone horribly wrong. In damage control mode, The Times of India published a story titled: "India may not be hit by G-8 raising bar on nuke tech transfer".

This is obviously rather juvenile. Even if one were to argue that the title does not automatically translate into "India may be hit", it shows a distinct lack of assertiveness. Of course they realized this within a few hours and fixed the title to say: "G-8 terms no bar, India can reprocess nuke fuel".

Too late, the original title, although quickly pulled, already made it into news aggregation sites.

Let's compare them once again:

(A) India may not be hit by G-8 raising bar on nuke tech transfer

(B) G-8 terms no bar, India can reprocess nuke fuel

These aren't nearly the same in meaning. Heck, they ain't even close. Even ignoring the issue of certainty vs. mere speculation, one talks about "nuke tech transfer" while the other talks about "reprocessing fuel". Reprocessing fuel, was NOT the only issue here.

Although the title has been massaged, the piece by Indrani Bagchi puts up feeble arguments or rather sidesteps the pertinent arguments:

At this point, India is only looking to be able to reprocess foreign-origin fuel, which in principle has been granted by France and Russia in their civil nuclear agreements which are yet to be made public.

Well, maybe so, but at the time when the deal was sold, it came with all sorts of promises, a cure all for electric problems for Kalawati, India's energy needs for 20 years, nuclear high tech stuff etc. sans any restrictions on our strategic program and intrusive inspections of our facilities. Now we are only looking to reprocess fuel. Sure.

There are two bottomlines that have to be remembered. First, India has a huge ace -- that climate change negotiations cannot go anywhere unless India has a viable alternative to hydrocarbon use, and that is nuclear. This is an argument that will trump many others in the current race for a climate change deal.

Well, Ms. Bagchi, are you telling us?

Let's try again:

Are you telling us?