On Nuke Deal

I generally don't like commies, but I guess, in India they definitely serve a purpose. To curtail the blatant hedonism of likes of Congress and BJP both. The recent noise about "left" threatening the government has made everyone express his or her opinion. Me too! :-)

First, truth be told, I don't know a word about what is there in the nuclear deal or "123". The only "123" that I know about is a song from the movie "तेज़ाब". However the rush with which PM Manmohan Singh has acted on the deal begs few question.

- For a deal as serious as this was there a "parliament approval"? Did US president sign the deal without Congress approval? Why did our PM sign the deal without "parliament approval"? and if the deal is signed and say implemented without parliament approval, will it be binding on the subsequent government (as and when it is formed)?

- History tells us that US never works in the interest of anyone but themselves. So the question that we should ask is - What exactly are those interests and how much detrimental are those?

Coming back to nuclear power plants or energy generation in India. Why the government does not come up with real numbers as to what is the shortage of electricity today? How the nuclear power plants are going to help fill that gap? What is the economics of nuclear energy vis-a-vis fossil fuel powered and other non-conventional like Wind powered? What are the hazards? What are the efforts taken to ensure that there is no collateral damage? Answering these questions will make the case really stronger (if the government indeed has one), otherwise this opens possibilities for a consipracy theory that sees under the veil Bofors like kickbacks.

Personally I don't think we should be building huge Megawatt power plants, but instead focus on few 10s of MW captive power plants connected with a grid. (I am not an expert), but looking at the population distribution and energy usage distribution, I guess it is far more economical in the long run to build captive power plants, with a distributed ownership.