Let's Automate the World

For some months now, we have been hearing of the Hyde Act, 1-2-3 Agreement and all sort of controversies in the media for and against the Indian Government signing some nuclear agreement between U.S. and India. India requires huge amounts of energy to be able to progress forward, there's no controversy on that. The question in the layman's mind is - will nuclear power be the holy grail to achieving this? Again, the scientific community against the agreement says that considering the projected power requirements till year 2040, the nuclear option can account only about 10% of that. So where will the remaining power come from?

When Prakash Karat and left parties were initially demanding to see the documents pertaining to the 1-2-3 Agreement, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared it was a confidential document that cannot be shared unless CPM and left parties join the Government (come on, we are not discussing someone's gossip stories or some Congress politics here. This is something that affects the whole nation and the minister has to answer to even a primary student because it is his future also that you are signing away.) Few days later, the document was published or leaked to the media and the whole nation became aware of the potential flaws in it.

The media has published the so called confidential reply by the US President to the Senate that the agreement allows US to terminate the deal anytime India carries out a nuclear test in future, that it is only a permissive and there is no compulsion to necessarily supply nuclear fuel, Indian civilian nuclear facilities will be under the IAEA microscope, etc.

In this circumstances, it is plain visible to see that India will be a total disadvantage to sign this agreement. The Prime Minister of India is showing overly too much interest in seeing the agreement signed at the earliest opportunity. The US administration has succeeded in getting the bill passed in the Senate and the Congress in a record period of few days, probably a first time event. Which leads one to believe that there is some loophole in it against India's favour that our over-enthusiastic leaders have not seen in their short-sighted eagerness to tighten the leash around our own necks.