Monday, August 06, 2007

123 agreement compromised India's case: Former BARC chief

Pretty hard-hitting opinion from former BARC chief, Dr. A. N. Prasad...

1 comment:

slim_shady said...

Yes, I thought that was pretty hard hitting and insightful - especially how this deal may deter India's homegrown harnessing of related reserves, i.e. not only hinder independence but mislead into unnecessary dependence.

The scenario that concerns me most about this deal is if India wants to break out of it in the future, the US might use the exit as an opportunity to use its massive media resources to label India a rogue state of sorts, and possibly make that belief a pretense for animosity and even war, as it did with Iraq. Fighting India indirectly is not difficult for others, as it is surrounded by not-so-friendly states. Also, India is not even in the same league or neighbourhood as the US when considering direct combat. So using common sense, this whole deal sounds like signing your soul over for energy that may be acquired otherwise.

Finally, I came across an article on the same topic in the Economist, where they come off just a little jealous about US-India dealmaking in such a critical area. It made me wonder that were this deal not to go through, people such as 1) those who wrote the Economist article, 2) Indian nationalists such as those at this blog, and 3) the Left might all be happy, but all for such dangerously different reasons!