The nuclear deal fiasco is super depressing. Here is one country with such diverse groups and self interests that it becomes impossible to take one step forward in the right direction without tea meetings, depreciatory remarks and no confidence motions.

This treaty is all about civilian nuclear power. No one is forcing us to define which installation is civilian or which one is of strategic interest. In fact, America should say the deal is heavily advantageous to India and it should be the American congress or the NSG nations that have to say this is dangerous and India cannot be trusted on this. Instead our people, or at least our very own parliament is saying we cannot trust Americans. This beats sense. Its true the American record has been poor. In fact even Russian record was poor with regards to most of our defense deals. In the early 70's, America stopped giving us enriched fuel due to a change in the American Congress Policy. But they did follow up on an alternative arrangement and let France supply the same to us. If we look at deals and agreements thru the eyes of the Left, no one in this world can be trusted. We don't want to be in a situation where in we'll lose 90 things in our tense effort to hang on to the remaining 10.In any deal, what we lose should be weighed carefully and compared against what we stand to gain and then sign the dotted line.Instead, the Left simply wants to block the deal citing India's policy of sovereignty and independent foreign policy fuelled by its blind hatred towards capitalism and western powers. This deal helps the industrialised countries and the western Industry , helps India, and also in a way helps the world. The Left further says they do not understand the term 'corrective measures'. They say its merely in the preamble of the deal and therefore not sufficient. Well if the left is so worried about a continuous supply of fuel, aren't they worried about the current situation of no fuel at all ? The Tarapur plant is languishing with no fuel and every plant in India is either under utilised or is not working at peak capability and no one is bothered about that. Can India really afford the luxury of non functional Power plants in an energy hungry situation like ours? Its sad that the Left has a policy of saying 'No' to anything which is forthcoming from a capitalistic power like America. And the BJP has a habit of opposing everything the government proposes. If parties take and stick to positions based on such obsolete ideologies and prejudices, we cannot pass a single bill without horsetrading and tea parties which would in turn lead to a classic situation of missing the bus. All this leads to driving countless people into situations which are not warrented in the first place.

If we want to be truly sovereign, we have to carefully see if we are indeed so with our current policies. Not a single country is ready to give us enriched fission material and we are still far away from using Thorium as our staple fuel. Enriched Uranium holds the key and no one really knows if we are capable of producing this in substantial amount. If we cannot as the situation is now, lets take it from other countries and this deal is great still.The Left parties do not understand basic commerce and are always blind to economic realities. Why do they live in the 60's bubble. The days of communialism are long gone. The erstwhile USSR is a classic example of the Left's policy of being completely self sufficient and blocking international trade in the name of military might and policy. Where is USSR now ? What does the Left want to accomplish with their policies? Why are they trying to teach Independent Foreign Policy crap to National Congress ?Don't they know that this policy was the brainchild of Nehru.If we now want to deviate from it for our own foothold in international transactions,why not change with the times?

Its truly deplorable that the people of this country still vote on the basis of caste, region or religion. We cannot afford to be so blatantly foolish in our international policy. The aam aadmi has no clue on the potential India holds. We live in a world which shares resources . We call that trade.If we do not cooperate , we can never hope to become leaders. Self sufficiency is an end which can be achieved ironically thru cooperation and diligent deals. The Chinese have done this effectively and are now in a strong position to turn deals in their favor. India on the other hand wants to throw away every little advantage that comes its way thru sheer human imbecility and human selfishness. Hope such things cannot stay forever against the necessity of nature and a Higher Will.

In the meantime, lets not blame the govt if there is a power cut next time.

21

21- . Like most greed based plots depicted in innumerable Vegas centered movies and books, the movie goes on expected lines with some minor change of backdrop.The story revolves around a group of youngsters of MIT who are supposedly smart and good at number crunching ( ! ) . The script is so totally obsessed with Casinos in Vegas and Black Jack in particular that one tends to completely forget that there are banks and financial institutions too in this world which can lend loans to credible 4 plus GDPA smart pants from MIT !!! So our poor poor hero who got everything else in life except money is desperate to get into Harvard Medical and the only thing stopping him is three hundred thousand dollars ! ( give me a break, the kid hasn't heard of education loans and he is in MIT ? ) . Anyway Ben, our poor hero, is noticed in the classroom by a crafty math Prof ( Kevin Spacey ) who quickly invites the guy to join his group which usually spends its weekends flying to Vegas and making money basically playing black jack. So here's what we got - this professional team who supposedly use their number crunching ability , word codes, body signs and some other glam sham tricks apart from probability to keep winning and stay unnoticed. ( I always thought playing cards is all about having a great memory and ability to read body language and conceal ones own ..anway..its all about math it seems ..we are told ) . So the wonderful smart team with two chinkis and two Americans ( and a perfect male / female ratio ) led by the maverick math prof goes from success to success until one drunken moment of Ben ruins it all. The second half shows him recovering from the situation he digs himself into. Anyway, the depiction of glamor, greed and the power of money keeps the audience mood upbeat. Of course the backdrop of Harvard and MIT tends to add some awe and the contrast of Vegas makes the movie interesting . However, I couldn't somehow believe that a MIT grad would save 315,000 dollars in a false ceiling when they could use few of their brain cells to beat thru Anti Money Laundering and easily come up with proxy accounts to save that money and earn some interest on it ( watch Shawshank Redemption, That's 'based' on a real story too ! ) . Guess for an MIT grad, beating the banking rules is as simple as getting a casino down. Well if you doubt that, look beyond Mezrich ;) .Anyway considering all my respect and love for MIT and Harvard institutions and Mezrich and Vegas , I would surely rate the movie gud :)

Tales from Distant Lands

THE SPACECRAFT WAS LONG WAY FROM HOME, speeding away from the sun at 40,000 miles an hour, but in early February it was overtaken by an urgent message from earth. Obediently it turned its cameras back towards the now distant planets, it snapped 60 pictures,and stored them in digital form on its recorder.Then slowly in March , April and May it radioed the data back to earth. Each image comprised of 6,40,000 pixels . the space craft was 3.7 billion miles from earth , so far away that it took 5 and half hours for the pixels travelling at the speed of light to reach us.

Its true that all the above might sound quite inconsequential and remote, but for the sake of records, the spacecraft's name is Voyager 1 . This ship and its sister Voyager 2 , have explored 4 planets and more than 60 worlds. Both the ships were on an outbound trajectory away from the solar system and they were guaranteed to work only till they reach Saturn ( that was the agreed critical mission objective) . So while Voyager1 was travelling, it was suddenly agreed* upon that it would be a great idea to take one last look at earth from that distance. It was this thought which was urgently messaged to Voyager-1 and one of the pics taken there formed the cover pic of Carl Sagan's amazing literary work titled the " Pale Blue Dot" .

Yes, it might sound inconsequential, but these simple but profound images are triumphs of human engineering and one of the glorious gifts of the American space program.They will be in history books when much else about our time is forgotten ..

*From the outer solar system the earth lies very close from the sun, NASA was not very sure if they wanted to aim the camera so close to the sun and thus risk burning out the video con system and hence wanted to delay it until all the images from the Uranus and Neptune system were captured first ..and so they waited .. from 1981 at Saturn till 1986 at Uranus ..till 1989 near Neptune ..and at last the time came ( even then a few instrumental calibrations were there to be done first before that pic could be taken in 1990 ) ..The planets were at the right alignment and although many were supportive of the idea, a few project personnel opposed it .." Its not science" they said ..and then it was discovered that the technical personal who devised and transmit the data from Voyager who were in a cash strapped NASA were to be laid off immediately or transferred to other jobs. If the picture had to be taken, it had to be done right then, at the last minute , actually in the midst of Voyager's outbound encounter with Neptune. The then NASA administrator Admiral Richard Truly stepped in and made sure that these images were obtained. The space scientists led by Kandy Hanson of NASA's jet propulsion Lab and Caroline Pokov of the University of Arizona designed the command sequence and calculated the camera's exposure times. So here they are, telling the tale from such distant lands ( in fact its our own tale of miraculous survival and existence as one living race which we so obviously fail to see or acknowledge and which ironically becomes so clear from such obscurely distant places ) . Enjoy the following inimitable Narration by Carl on what he calls the pale blue dot !!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw