
Columnist M.D. Nalapat explains what should happen next now that the Left has allowed the Manmohan Singh government to discuss the deal in both Houses of Parliament without a formal vote being taken. He explains, 8220;Now that the CPI and the CPM have apparently decided to follow Beijing8217;s lead in allowing the Bush-Singh nuclear pact to proceed towards fulfillment, the only recourse for nationalists is to make transparent the conditions under which they will agree to continue a deal.8221; This is because, 8220;should the US and other NATO countries recognise the centrality of India in their future security calculus, they would appreciate that the conditions mentioned above are reasonable, agreeing to which by the NSG and the IAEA can result in the nationalist community backing an India-US nuclear deal that is just and realistic.8221;
Games CPM plays
Southern betrayal
Shyam Khosla is outraged about the betrayal by Deve Gowda in Karnataka. 8220;The inevitable has happened. Central rule has been re-imposed in Karnataka after a brief and unseemly interlude. No one expected the B.S. Yeddyurappa government to survive for long, but many thought former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his son H.D. Kumaraswamy would wait for a plausible reason to ditch the BJP. But the treacherous father-son duo needed no fig leaf to indulge in yet another political farce. They wouldn8217;t support the confidence motion moved simply because the BJP had firmly rejected unreasonable conditions attached to 8216;unconditional8217; support pledged by them. They wanted BJP to submit to a Memorandum of Understanding MoU on stamp paper. The despicable MoU was nothing but a ridiculous document that ran against the concept of parliamentary system of government enshrined in the Constitution. There was no question of BJP condescending to sign it,8221; he writes.