[sacw] [ACT] South Asians Against Nukes (1 Feb 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes Post
=46ebruary 1, 2000
-----------------------------------------

#1.

=46ull text of the study 'PAKISTANS CHASHMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT '
by Zian Mian and A.H. Nayyar PU/CEES Report No. 321, December,1999 is now
available as a pdf file on the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies
(University of Princeton, USA) website:
http://www.princeton.edu:80/~cees/arms/index.shtml

__________

#2.
[Bad Economics of India's Nuclear Power
India's state owned Nuclear Power corporation is a white elephant, has a
massive budget but still remains completely economically unviable. Its
profits speak for themselves... its just barely managing to stay afloat]

Economic Times
Jan 25, 2000; Pg. 4

NUCLEAR POWER CORPORATION: UNAUDITED FINANCIAL RESULTS
(net profit Rs11,925 lakh *),
[* 1 Lakh =3D Rs.100,000]
---
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited Website:
http://www.npcil.org/

__________

#3.

[What India's Hindu Far Right has to say about India Not signing the CTBT;
Posted Below is an article from the latest issue of the Hindu rightwing
organisation the 'RSS']

Organiser
Vol. LI, No. 27
NEW DELHI, January 30, 2000

CTBT and India's options
Air Marshal A.K. Mukhopadhyaya (Retd)

It is being made out that India is keen to sign the CTBT, a treaty which
has been violated with impunity by the super powers even after their
signatures and a treaty which has not been ratified by any major power
and ratification of which has been comprehensively rejected by the
Senate of USA. The status of the treaty will be no better after India's
signature as it cannot 'come into force' without ratification by the
USA. In the new found keenness to discuss the CTBT, it has clearly been
forgotten that earlier, it was postulated that India will consider
signature after it is ratified and observed by all major powers. Also
some other objective conditions were to be fulfilled and that India's
security interests would not be compromised. It is an acknowledged fact
that signature on CTBT will finish off India's independent security
status.

It must be understood that USA is the only strategic power and it does
not consider itself bound by any external limitations of any nature and
it feels completely free to reject any international treaty, obligation
and understanding if it suits its national strategic interest. It can be
ruthless in getting other countries to obey the treaty etc., if it suits
them. America also has convinced itself that domination of technological
edge is at the root of their strategic power. They will maintain
technological superiority at any cost to other nations. They are quite
neutral in denying the cutting edge technologies to all and sundry, even
to its so-called strategic friends.

Prior to the signing of CTBT, Government must authoritatively declare
whether sanctions, technology denials and control regimes had hurt
India's interests, particularly security interests, or not? And if
India's interests have in fact been affected, they are duty bound to
explain why the offending countries were not dragged to the WTO and why
no sanctions were imposed by India against these countries?

The litany could go on endlessly. Let's have a look at the nuclear
option itself. We have persuaded ourselves that nuclear option have two
clear-cut choices-"Bomb" or "No Bomb". It, however, is not well
articulated that nuclear explosion is an extension of the research in
nuclear sciences. Nuclear explosions are not essentially a
weapon-related activity. Highly developed countries like USA need about
1200 and Russia about 700, UK about 250, France about 350 and China
about 50 explosions to refine their weapons technologies! All these
tests could not have been for development of the bomb alone as then
China could not be considered to be a nuclear weapon state. Then, also,
on the "number of tests" criteria, India cannot claim to be nuclear
weapon state. Indian Government and intellectuals must accept that,
barring a few; majority of the tests is for development of technologies.
China is technologically much inferior to the other developed states.
=46irst, it started late and secondly, it was militarily too weak and also
did not have the administrative or intellectual under-pinning to obtain
the benefits of the technologies indigenously developed or those
obtained (somehow) from the developed countries.

The truth may be that naivete has not permitted the scientists and
thinkers to consider that such large number of explosions are not really
meant for development of weapons at all but to push hard at the
frontiers of knowledge. The naivete that underground nuclear explosions
are cleaner than atmospheric or space explosions need to be rejected.
Underground explosions are pernicious in more than one way. Only the
most simpletons could imagine that the underground tests are conducted
in a simple hole in the ground and some seismic and radiation
measurements are taken to determine the output of energy. In fact, the
underground test cell is a fully instrumented laboratory designed to
conduct short and long duration tests. Scientists are talking of many
kilometer diameter particle accelerators for studying quarks and gluons
but they do not mention publicly that such experiments can be simulated
in the core of the nuclear explosion. Most of the parameters of modern
Particle Physics, Chemistry and a large variety of metallurgy can only
be studied with the range of energies, temperatures, pressures and flux
densities available close to a nuclear explosion. Again, high intensity
photon experiments can only be conducted close to a nuclear explosion.
We have not thought of conducting "Pulsed", "Flattened Peak" or
"Throttlable" explosions. Have we thought of "Tunnel", "Directed" or
"Polarized" energy explosions? When shall we be talking of 'Plasma
Lasers' (Pasers)? It should be considered that most of the
super-conductivity experiments can be carried out in the arena of
nuclear explosions. These explosions may give a whole range of
semi-conductors and VVLSI circuits and Bio-engineered mutants etc. once
properly arrayed in the test cells of underground explosion chambers. We
must consider the possibility of conducting high flux, high energy, high
velocity and high-density particle tests, high pressure/temperature
experiments, super high and super low conductivity, high fluidity tests,
which are only possible with a nuclear explosion.

All of us ought to be aware that 'Star wars' programmes of the two
superpowers and their camp followers are not solely war-making efforts
but quite the contrary. These experiments are primarily aimed at
Technology Upgradation-multiple quantum jumps in technology and cost
ladder. The technologies are being evolved in such costly and apparently
esoteric ways that there will be least chances of competition from
newcomers. Again, an essential component of star-wars programme is a
variety of nuclear explosions for energy and high-powered particles,
because the order of magnitude of the energies required in star wars
programme cannot be obtained by any other means.

That nuclear explosions have moved far away from weapon development
regime can be surmised from the way USA and USSR are now co-operating in
nuclear testing. They are carrying out tests in each other's test-sites.
This set of agreement or understanding would not have been possible if
the tests were primarily for weapons development. After lot of sparring,
headging and feints, they have come to acknowledge each other's
superiority in some field or other and the cooperation that they are
extending to each other are in scientific and non-critical areas and for
calibration of each other's monitoring facilities for mutual deterrence.

=46rom the above narration it ought to be apparent that to get out of
nuclear explosions is to opt out of mainstream of science and
technology. India's steadfast adherence to 'No-Test' declarations can
only mean that India has opted for the second and third rate power
status not only in military matters but, more specifically, in
scientific matters. It is no denying that any explosions for scientific
purposes will also give fall-out in defence field. But that cannot be
avoided by any powerful and knowledge-conscious country.

India's decision not to carry out nuclear explosions till Pakistan so
does it or her security concerns are seriously questioned, cannot be
supported from the point of view of advancement of science. Nuclear
explosions are so vital an ingredient of a large field of science that
the decision of not carrying out nuclear explosions can only be
considered as a part of big Indian naivete.

While the successive governments did not exhibit the courage of
conviction it was expected of the Vajpayee Government to comprehend that
opportunity for exercising nuclear option is already over-due and more
time will not ease pressures on India. In fact, the liberalisation and
market forces have reduced the room for manoeuvering by Indian
Government. Pressures of globalization (read Americanisation) will
become more sophisticated, diverse, divisive, intense, and internecine
in the times to come. Indian leaders seem to keep forgetting that
'bullies always threaten and attack the weak-willed ones'.

India is a big country and has a big population and needs to display big
will power also. There will never be a better time for exercising the
nuclear or missile options. The skeptics could take courage from the
fact that when China exercised independent nuclear, missile or military
options, that country was more vulnerable than India is to-day.

India will have to carry out minimum of 40 nuclear tests. In the first
phase in which first twenty or so will be mainly weapon-related and the
rest mainly scientific/Engineering/Technology demonstrators.
Considerable number of engineering and scientific personnel will have to
be mobilized for conducting the various tests.

The window of opportunity provided by Pakistan's declaration of its
possession of nuclear bombs and its test-firing of 'Ghauri' missile and
promise of test-firing still better and longer range missiles, should be
fully utilised by India for its nuclearisation and militarisation.
Moratorium on Nuclear explosion is a political and diplomatic tool and
it must be used as such. India declared unilateral and unconditional
moratorium on testing but that did not deter America and others from
imposing sanctions.

It is time to declare that India will go for long-term moratorium only
if America and the other P-5 countries agree to share with India all the
data collected so far on all their undergound, space and, particularly,
atmospheric explosions. This is a tall, but scientifically,
technologically and logically a totally tenable demand.

So far, the Government has been behaving defensively and has almost lost
steam on nuclear issue in the face of the concerted move of the
self-claimed secularists and the western powers. We must consider the
pros and cons and reach a consensus before signing on the dotted line
which might prove treacherous.