SACW | March 11-12, 2007 | Terror hit Samjahauta express and Indo Pak cooperation; Bangladesh: One begum down; India: Haripur nuclear plans / Indo US nuclear deal; India - Pakistan Militarisation and Arms Race as usual

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | March 11-12, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2375 - Year 9

[1]  A terrorism-hit train fails to carry the 
South Asian peace process forward  (J. Sri Raman)
[2]  Bangladesh: One begum down (The Economist)
[3]  India: Drifting Into Nuclear Blunderland - 
Scrap the Haripur plant! (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  Indo - US Nuclear Deal: The Missing Exit Clause (Anil Nauriya)
[5]  India Pakistan Arms Race And Militarisation Watch Compilation No 168


____


[1]

South Asia Peace Wire - March 11, 2007
sacip.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2007/03/11/jsrmarch07.html

TRAIN TRAGEDY FAILS TO HELP ANTI-TERROR CAUSE
by J. Sri Raman (truthout.org)

     The hawks of India and Pakistan can heave a 
sigh of relief. A terrorism-hit train has failed 
to carry the South Asian peace process forward 
even fractionally, as many had fondly hoped.

     This should come as no surprise to watchers 
of the region, considering the place for 
terrorism in the political themes official India 
and Pakistan have pursued in the past, especially 
in the post-9/11 period. Before coming to that, a 
brief look at the latest twist in the tale.

     The bomb blasts of February 18 on the 
Samjhauta (Understanding) Express, taking a toll 
of 68 Pakistani and Indian lives (mostly the 
former), caused a surge of hope along with great 
sorrow on both sides of the border. The common 
tragedy was expected to make the rulers of the 
two countries move, even if reluctantly, towards 
a common approach to terrorism - to its 
perception as a common enemy.

     For a short while, this seemed to be 
happening. Observers noted a series of negative 
gains.

     For the first time, in the first place, an 
apparent terrorist strike did not lead to an 
abrupt break in the bilateral talks through which 
the peace process has proceeded thus far. The 
Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006, attributed 
officially and by the opposition in India to 
"cross-border terrorism," had applied a sharp, 
sudden brake to the process, with the scrapping 
of scheduled talks at the level of foreign 
secretaries. Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Minister 
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, was due to visit New 
Delhi on February 20.

     The very next day, an India-Pakistan pact on 
nuclear risk reduction was signed. And, the two 
sides went ahead with their earlier plan to hold 
the first meeting of an India-Pakistan Joint 
Counter-Terror Mechanism (JCTM) in Islamabad on 
March 6-7.

     The list of pluses ends here, and the longer 
one of pathetic minuses begins. Many may wonder 
how much of a plus the pact on nuclear risk 
reduction was, considering that it envisaged no 
more than alerting the other side in case of a 
"cross-border" fallout; and some may find strange 
the official safety promise following an accident 
of this scale. Let us, however, let that pass.

     What we cannot forget is how fast the feigned 
anti-terrorist solidarity disappeared at the 
official level. The people of Panipat, where the 
bombs went off, rushed to rescue the Pakistanis, 
and passengers from across the border vowed to 
travel by the same train and not to concede a 
victory to terrorism. Representatives of the two 
governments, especially in the foreign affairs 
and railway ministries, however, started 
bickering even as the Samjhauta victims lay 
groaning in hospital beds.

     While Kasuri and his Indian counterpart 
Pranab Mukhejee voiced the most virtuous 
sentiments, lesser officials traded charges over 
the charred bodies. Pakistanis were accused of 
impeding investigations, and Indians were accused 
of treating the victims as "suspects."

     Pakistan's Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid 
Ahmed gave a new dimension to the ugly debate by 
insinuating that Kasuri was "compromising" 
Pakistan's position in India. We do not know 
whether it is an official policy to let Rashid 
get loudly anti-India while the rest of 
Pakistan's establishment, including President 
Pervez Musharraf, appears sober and responsible. 
But the Railway Minister has gone full steam 
ahead trying to derail the peace process.

     Nothing much, in these circumstances, was 
really expected from the JCTM meeting, and 
nothing much has emanated. According to Indian 
accounts, based on official briefings, the Indian 
side shared "evidence and information" with 
Pakistan about the Samjhauta affair, though the 
evidence seems to have been confined to the 
picture of a single suspect, handed over for 
further investigation. According to similarly 
based Pakistani accounts, this picture was not 
accompanied by the person's passport number or 
other particulars. Denying this, New Delhi 
insists that specific details were given. The 
public has no way of knowing which of the reports 
is right.

     The Pakistani side claimed to have given its 
counterpart "concrete evidence" of India's 
involvement in the Balochistan rebellion. The 
role of Indian consulates in neighboring 
Afghanistan's Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat in 
this regard is said to have been documented in 
detail. The Indian side has, of course, 
indignantly denied this as well, claiming that 
the consulates were only devoting themselves to 
Afghan development projects.

     The JCTM is scheduled to meet again in June. 
But, despite the Samjhauta tragedy, no serious 
observer expects New Delhi and Islamabad to 
become comrades-in-arms against terrorism. The 
barest possibility of such a partnership, in 
fact, disappeared when both of them became part 
of the Bush-led "alliance against global terror" 
in the aftermath of 9/11.

     Both of them, after all, entered the alliance 
with eagerness only in a desperate bid to turn it 
decisively against each other. President 
Musharraf has repeatedly reiterated his hope that 
Islamabad's anti-terrorist partnership with 
Washington and the West will help its cause in 
Kashmir. New Delhi under former Prime Minister 
Atal Bihari Vajpayee for its part, while forging 
a "strategic partnership" with the US, pressed 
for recognition of its right to stage "a 
pre-emptive strike" against Pakistan. 
Anti-terrorism, obviously, does not carry the 
same connotations in both the capitals.

     It never did. B Raman, a former official of 
the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's 
external intelligence service, illustrates the 
point in one of his recent articles. Recalling 
earlier efforts made in the late '80s and early 
'90s for a common mechanism of counterterrorism, 
he says that the Indian side then focused on the 
Khalistani separatist movement in Punjab, 
believed to have cross-border backing. The 
Pakistani side's counter was to present New Delhi 
with a dossier on India's involvement in the 
separatist struggle in the Sindh province.

     Punjab and Sindh, in other words, have just 
been replaced by Kashmir and Balochistan in the 
supposed counterterror confabulations of the two 
countries. The game can be expected to go on.

     We should not be surprised, however, that 
Richard Boucher, US assistant secretary of state 
for South and Central Asian affairs, finds the 
outcome of the JCTM session "positive." Such 
charades do help to keep appearances of an 
anti-terror alliance, while keeping its South 
Asian members divided enough for cynical 
manipulation.

     A freelance journalist and a peace activist 
of India, J. Sri Raman is the author of 
Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a 
regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.

______


[2]

The Economist print edition
March 8th 2007 | DHAKA


ONE BEGUM DOWN

The generals show who's boss


TWENTY-SIX years after the assassination of her husband, General
Ziaur Rahman, a former president of Bangladesh, the political career
of Khaleda Zia, prime minister until last October, has come to an
end. Bangladesh's army, the moving force behind a state of emergency
declared in January, is finally baring its teeth. As it promised from
the outset, but at first failed to prove, its anti-corruption drive
will spare no one. On March 8th it arrested Tarique Rahman, Mrs Zia's
son. In recent weeks there were rumours that Mrs Zia, leader of the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and one of the "two begums" who
have dominated politics, had been trying to negotiate a graceful exit
for herself and her two sons. The generals, it now seems, are not
open for negotiation.

Reuters

Goodbye, ten per cent For good measure, it searched the house of the
other begum, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, also a former prime minister and
leader of the other big party, the Awami League. But no arrests were
made. The military-backed government also published a list of 50 top
businessmen and leaders from the two big parties who it wants to
arrest. Perhaps most important, the administration has announced
plans to create a National Security Council—in effect an admission by
the army's top brass that it has become impossible to govern the
country from behind the curtain any longer.

Mr Rahman, a senior BNP official, and long Mrs Zia's presumed
successor, had in recent years become the symbol in the public mind
of kleptocratic rule and the politics of violent retaliation. Most
Bangladeshis preferred not to mention him by name, out of fear.
Instead they dubbed him "Mr Ten Per Cent"—a reference to his alleged
cut on almost any deal done by his mother's government. But the
culture of fear is waning. The BNP, the party his mother inherited
from his father, is desperately fighting for its survival.

Fear of a possible backlash by BNP loyalists is one reason behind the
creation of a National Security Council. It suggests that the army
feels that the fiction it has been maintaining—that it is merely
helping a civilian administration hold elections—has become
unsustainable. The council will include the chiefs of the three
branches of the armed forces. To give the arrangement a more
acceptable gloss, it will also bring in civilians, and will be led by
the head of the interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World
Bank official.

The "advisers" who have made up Mr Ahmed's administration, which is
now in effect defunct, have been hopelessly overstretched. Some have
responsibility for no fewer than five ministries. The new council
gives the army a formal mechanism for bossing the administration it
installed in January. It replaced a supposedly neutral caretaker
government that, under Bangladesh's fraught two-party system,
normally takes over for three months at the end of a government's
five-year term to oversee fair elections. This one had provoked
violent protests from League supporters, who accused it of planning
to rig the election due in January. The state of emergency meant the
poll has been postponed indefinitely.

Dhaka is now in an excited state. The military-backed administration
still enjoys widespread public support from a public disillusioned
with the corruption and eternal feuding of the big parties. But hopes
of a Bangladeshi "velvet revolution", facilitated by the military,
are beginning to fade as the realisation dawns that engineering the
army's return to the barracks will be difficult. With most of the
former political class now behind bars, the withdrawal of the army
from politics and a lifting of the state of emergency would carry the
risk of retribution. A total of about 30 former ministers,
politicians, businessmen and civil servants are already in prison on
charges of corruption. This week a court extended for a further month
their detention without charge.

The current army chief, General Moeen U. Ahmed, is likely to be safe
from retribution at least until his scheduled retirement in June
2008. The summer monsoon pushes the local elections—likely to be held
before parliamentary elections as a test—to the final quarter of 2008
and national polls into early 2009. With the BNP decapitated, there
is a political void. One candidate to fill it is Muhammad Yunus, a
Nobel-prize-winning microcredit pioneer. But his attempt to build a
new political force probably needs the army's backing, which Mr Yunus
will want to avoid. Meanwhile, Western governments and donors are
happy with emergency arrangements. Like many Bangladeshis, they say a
period of 12-18 months would be acceptable. Both foreigners and
Bangladeshis might have to learn a little more patience.

______


[3]

South Asians Against Nukes
URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/999

o o o

The Praful Bidwai Column

February 26, 2007

DRIFTING INTO NUCLEAR BLUNDERLAND

Scrap the Haripur plant!

by Praful Bidwai

After Singur and Nandigram, the West Bengal 
government has opened another Pandora's Box with 
a proposal to build a giant nuclear power 
station, India's largest atomic plant, at Haripur 
in East Medinipur district. The project is a 
Central government initiative. But it enjoys 
considerable support from the state's Left Front 
government, led by the Communist Party of India 
(Marxist-CPM).

The public knows very little about the Haripur 
project except that it's likely to consist of six 
reactors of 1,690 megawatts each, a size three 
times bigger than the largest reactor the 
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has ever built 
(540 MW). Together, they will generate 10,000 MW 
in a single location-contrasting sharply with 
India's current nuclear capacity of 3,900 MW 
spread over 6 sites.

Yet, such is the opacity surrounding Haripur that 
the project hasn't even been discussed in the 
state Cabinet. There is no clarity about which 
agency will build it and with what resources. 
Opacity is itself a strong enough reason to 
question the Haripur project. But as we see 
below, even stronger ecological, economic, social 
and political arguments exist for scrapping it 
altogether at today's early stage.

The Left Front in Bengal should seize the 
initiative to do so for the same reasons that 
Kerala's Left parties in the 1990s opposed a 
nuclear power plant at Peringom in Kannur 
district-namely, that nuclear power stations must 
not be built in a densely populated region. 
Deltaic Bengal is even more densely inhabited 
than Kerala. Haripur is in a cyclone-prone area. 
This further strengthens the argument.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has coined 
a new slogan, "Agriculture - our foundation; 
Industry - our future". This is painted all over 
Kolkata. This suggests that large-scale industry 
alone can develop Bengal, generate jobs and raise 
incomes across-the-board.

Mr Bhattacharjee is backing Haripur on the 
assumption that the key to Bengal's 
industrialisation lies in nuclear power, an 
abundant, safe, environmental benign and 
economically competitive energy source, which is 
rapidly growing the world over, and emerging as a 
solution to the grave problem of global warming 
caused by fossil-fuel burning.

This assumption is comprehensively wrong. It's 
mired in naïve, outdated but techno-romantic 
"Atoms for Peace" thinking of the early 1950s. 
Despite huge subsidies by the state, nuclear 
power has betrayed its early promise and turned 
out unaffordably expensive, difficult to manage, 
unacceptably unsafe, accident-prone, and 
environmentally unsound.

Currently, the fixed capital costs of nuclear 
power stations in most countries are 50 to 70 
percent higher than those of coal- and oil-fired 
electricity plants. These are translated into 
higher unit costs of energy. Investing in nuclear 
power is doubly unwise because that detracts from 
developing renewable energy, some of which (e.g. 
wind) has already become commercially competitive.

The history of nuclear power is a story, 
according to energy consultant Amory Lovins, of 
the greatest failure in the world's industrial 
history. It's also a story of euphoric 
projections and repeatedly missed targets. Thus, 
had the nuclear industry's projections, made a 
quarter-century ago, materialised, the globe 
would have had 10 times more nuclear power than 
it has today. India is a prime example of this 
failure. We're still well under half of the 
target (10,000 MW) set for 1980!

Nuclear power contributes 16 percent to global 
electricity generation-and an even more modest 6 
percent to energy consumption. This contribution 
will shrink rapidly in the coming decades. In 
place of the 114 reactors (of a world total of 
435) that will be retired within a decade from 
now on reaching the age of 40 years, only 29 new 
ones are under construction, according to the 
International Atomic Energy Agency, the body 
mandated to promote nuclear power. Even if 
reactors in the nebulous "planning" stage are 
added, the new capacity won't match the capacity 
being retired.

Even the conservative pro-nuclear Economist 
magazine concedes that most reactors in the rich 
OECD countries, which account for two-thirds of 
the world total, will close down. Major countries 
like Germany, Britain, Italy, Sweden and Belgium 
are phasing out nuclear power. Even France, the 
world's most nuclear-powered country, with 79 
percent of power drawn from the atom, has shut 
down 11 reactors and has plans for only one new 
reactor.

This means there's no global nuclear 
reconnaissance, as romantically predicted. Only a 
few Asian countries, including China, South 
Korea, Indonesia and India, have plans for major 
expansion. These aren't societies that greatly 
value environment safety.

Nuclear power bristles with safety and 
environmental problems. Radiation is the most 
ubiquitous. Each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle 
releases ionising radiation, an invisible, 
intangible, silent poison, which damages the DNA 
of cells and causes cancer or genetic disorders. 
Radiation can't be eliminated or extinguished; it 
can only be relocated. Radiation is harmful in 
all doses-in routine emissions, as well as big 
releases.

Nuclear power is highly accident-prone. It 
involves complex, interlocked systems operating 
at relatively high temperatures and pressures. 
Chernobyl, which has claimed 95,000 lives since 
1986, remains the world's worst accident. Yet, 
all reactor types can undergo a catastrophic 
accident with a core meltdown and large 
radioactivity releases. No amount of extraneous 
or marginal "protection", like containment domes, 
can remedy structural flaws in existing reactor 
designs. The probability of a Chernobyl is 
admittedly low, but its consequences so 
unacceptable that even an ultra-low probability 
isn't good enough.

Radioactive wastes are nuclear power's worst 
legacy. All nuclear activity produces wastes; 
some remain dangerously active for thousands of 
years. Thus, plutonium-239, formed as reactors 
burn uranium, has a half-life of 24,400 years. 
And uranium-235's half-life is 710 million years! 
Science knows no container which can safely store 
such wastes for so long. Disposal isn't remotely 
on the agenda. No geological formations are 
stable for that length of time. Building nuclear 
plants is like constructing homes without 
toilets, only more dangerous.

In Haripur's case, these generic problems are 
compounded by location-specific issues. The 
site's proximity to the eastern coalbelt (about 
400 km) further undermines its economic 
viability: the DAE itself says nuclear power is 
only competitive beyond a distance of 800 km from 
a coal pithead. The Haripur coast is notoriously 
cyclone-prone and periodically lashed by waves 
that make deep incursions. Should tidal water 
enter the reactor building, as nearly happened at 
Kalpakam during the tsunami 2 years ago, it's 
liable to poison large swathes of land. It's 
patently ill-advised to site a nuclear plant at 
such a vulnerable location, where a 20 km-long 
dyke (protective wall) was built decades ago to 
prevent flooding.

The Haripur plant will pose serious human 
problems. If the DAE follows its own siting 
regulations-a 1.5 km-radius totally uninhabited 
"exclusive zone" around the reactor, and a 
further 30 km radius with a sparse population-, 
it will have to evict over 10,000 families. This 
is a mind-boggling number. West Bengal has no 
land for resettling them. As I noted during a day 
trip to Haripur, large numbers of people who live 
next to the coast are fisherfolk, many of them 
landless. Their livelihoods will be destroyed if 
they are displaced.

The Haripur area, just 7 km from Kanthi town 
(pop. 78,000), has a flourishing agrarian economy 
enriched by sea and inland fisheries, fruit and 
vegetable cultivation, reed-based handicrafts, 
and other occupations. The land is 
extraordinarily fertile.

Many farmers told me they earn close to Rs 3 
lakhs per acre through rice and pulse 
cultivation, and by growing brinjals, tomato and 
gourds (for which Haripur is famous), as well as 
cashewnuts, mangoes and chikoos. It would be 
utterly tragic if this thriving, throbbing 
economy with a potential for healthy 
industrialisation were laid to ruin by the 
mindless construction of a nuclear plant.

The entire population of the area is opposed to 
the plant. It's overwhelmingly literate and has 
heard of Chernobyl, radiation and plutonium. 
People oppose the plant not only because it will 
displace and impoverish them. They say there 
should be "no nuclear power, anywhere, anytime". 
Since November 17 last, the people have blocked 
entry into Haripur. DAE teams were twice sent 
back. No government representative can enter the 
village in a four-wheeler. There will be serious 
bloodshed if the government imposes the plant on 
a people determined to resist it.

It doesn't make sense even from the DAE's point 
of view to impose it. It'll get further 
discredited by repeating a larger version of 
Narora. When Narora was chosen for India's third 
nuclear power station for political reasons, DAE 
scientists, including the late A K Ganguly, 
opposed it on the ground that nuclear power has 
no place in the lush Gangetic plains. This 
applies a fortiori to Haripur. The Left Front 
will incur the public's anger if it imposes the 
project on it. Its own ranks are opposed to it. 
It must respect them-and sound economic, human 
and environmental logic. It must scrap the plant 
NOW!-end-

____________

SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN):
An informal information platform for activists 
and scholars concerned about the dangers of 
Nuclearisation in South Asia

SAAN Web site:
http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
or
http://perso.orange.fr/sacw/saan/

SAAN Mailing List:
To subscribe send a blank message to:
saan_-subscribe at yahoogroups.com


______


[4]

The Times of India
7 Mar, 2007

EXIT CLAUSE

by Anil Nauriya

The Indo-US nuclear deal has been debated at 
length and in great detail. It, however, gives 
rise to a constitutional issue that requires some 
attention. Certain arrangements have been made 
between the two countries which are a prelude to 
a further agreement, now under negotiation.

This agreement is also to assume, in due course, 
certain multilateral characteristics with 
specific international bodies and other countries 
being brought into the picture.

In India, the usual practice has been for the 
executive to exercise complete treaty-making 
powers. The executive may bind the country to an 
international treaty, agreement or convention.

Unlike the US, in India, the imprimatur of the 
legislature is not essential for the purpose of 
entering into a binding international arrangement.

Of course, legislation is sometimes required to 
implement such pacts. This is done under Article 
253 of the Constitution.

By and large, this system has worked. But there 
is one aspect of the existing system that 
requires reconsideration.

Most treaties that a country enters into have an 
exit clause, permitting a country to withdraw 
from the treaty under certain circumstances and 
in a specified manner.

For example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 
which India did not sign, had a provision 
permitting withdrawal from the treaty, after 
giving six months' notice, if a country "decides 
that extraordinary events related to the subject 
matter of this Treaty have jeopardised its 
supreme interests".

Where such exit clauses do exist, the lack of a 
requirement in India of a parliamentary 
imprimatur on such treaties or agreements may not 
be of serious consequence.

A different situation arises where such an exit 
clause does not exist and the executive enters 
into an agreement that may bind the country in 
perpetuity.

Ordinarily, where a treaty itself does not 
contain an exit clause, such exit would be 
governed by the principles underlying the Vienna 
Convention on the Law of Treaties.

Article 56 of the Vienna Convention restricts 
possibilities of withdrawal from a treaty if the 
original agreement does not have an exit clause.

Obviously, withdrawal becomes still more 
difficult if the original agreement itself 
actually bars exit and speaks of a commitment in 
perpetuity.

There is a further provision in Article 62 for 
the invoking of a "fundamental change of 
circumstances" as a ground for withdrawal from a 
treaty. But this is heavily circumscribed.

The document titled, 'Implementation of the 
India-United States Joint Statement of July 18, 
2005: India's Separation Plan', was tabled in 
Parliament on March 7, 2006.

When the deal was being negotiated India sought 
ironclad guarantees that nuclear fuel supplies 
would not be disrupted, considering particularly 
the past Indian experience.

In return, the US sought certain safeguards in 
perpetuity. So far as the guarantee given to 
India is concerned, this is couched in some 
ambiguity.

"If despite these arrangements, a disruption of 
fuel supplies to India occurs, the United States 
and India would jointly convene a group of 
friendly supplier countries to include countries 
such as Russia, France and the United Kingdom to 
pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply 
to India".

The expression "to pursue such measures" could 
mean anything. It is ambiguous inasmuch as the 
measures could include conditionalities imposed 
on India, on the fulfilment of which fuel supply 
would be restored.

On the other hand, the Indian commitment is set 
out emphatically: "In light of the above 
understandings with the United States, an 
India-specific safeguards agreement will be 
negotiated... Taking this into account, India 
will place its civilian nuclear facilities under 
India-specific safeguards in perpetuity and 
negotiate an appropriate safeguards agreement to 
this end with the IAEA".

It is worth considering whether the framers of 
the Indian Constitution envisaged the possibility 
of the executive making perpetual commitments of 
this nature when they provided in Article 73 that 
the executive power of the Union would extend to 
matters with respect to which Parliament has 
power to make laws.

In any event, they took care expressly to make 
Article 73 "subject to the provisions of this 
Constitution". Thus, executive power is made 
coextensive with that of the legislative power of 
Parliament; but the executive power is subject to 
other provisions of the Constitution.

In other words, it is arguable that no 
commitment, much less a perpetual commitment, can 
be made that Parliament may not reject.

However, it is necessary to remove scope for 
ambiguity regarding parliamentary power at least 
in respect of that limited class of international 
treaties and arrangements where the executive 
enters into perpetual commitments without there 
being available any of the exit clauses usually 
found in treaties.

In respect of such cases, an express positive 
requirement of a parliamentary imprimatur needs 
to be written into the Constitution.

This can be done by adding a proviso to Article 
73 specifying clearly that executive power, when 
exercised to make a commitment in perpetuity, 
would be subject to approval by a special 
majority in the two Houses of Parliament.

In such cases, and such cases alone, Parliament 
could also be empowered to give conditional 
approvals and to specify certain reservations.

It will be useful if an amendment of this nature 
could be made before finalisation of the Indo-US 
pact. Such an amendment should receive support 
across the political spectrum, as it would 
strengthen the hands of Indian negotiators and 
clarify the position for their interlocutors.

The writer is a senior Supreme Court advocate.


______


[5] 

INDIA PAKISTAN ARMS RACE AND MILITARISATION WATCH COMPILATION NO 168
Year Seven, (February 28, 2007)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1   Eminent Jurists Begin Probe into Counter-Terrorism Laws in South Asia
2   India: So-called Anti-Terrorist Laws are Tools of State Terrorism
3   Pakistan: Militarisation of politics
4   War in Afghanistan and Pakistan 
5   Pakistan: Sources of illegal weapons are all 
too well known to need investigation
6   India: Guns for pleasure, anyone?
7   Pakistan: New policy on military lands
8   Pakistan and India's mad fantasy of keeping nuclear weapons free from risk:
   - Nuclear accord designed to promote 'stable' environment
9  India and Pakistan's tit for tat missile race:
  - Pakistan military tests missile - Hatf VI missile test
  - Pakistan test fires long-range ballistic missile
  - India tests Brahmos Missile in February 2007 
  - India Plans 2nd ABM Test in June [2007]
10 India - Pakistan - Defence Spending:
   - Big rise in Indian defence budget
   - India hikes defence budget to Rs 96000 cr
   - Hike in unproductive expenditure
11 The "disappeared" in Pakistan and India:
- Pakistani "disappeared" a growing problem: group
- Democracy disappears with persons who 'disappear'
- Kashmir Solidarity Committee and APDP Hold protest Rally in Delhi
- Kashmir's big lie
- India: Investigate All 'Disappearances' in Kashmir
- India: Government Should Act to Stop Murders in Custody
- Rogues in Khaki - Justice cannot be delivered on pick and choose basis
- Indian anti-terrorism troops accused of executing civilians
- Criminals in combat fatigues
- FIRs expose Army's hand in civilian killings
- Another body exhumed in Kashmir
- Body of carpenter killed in "encounter" exhumed
12  Siachen Madness or Mountain Peace
13  Victims of War on Terror in India and Pakistan:
- Trial and terror
- Voices of The Internally Displaced: Jammu & Kashmir
- Too many dubious convictions in Pakistan, say activists
14 Manipur and the Struggle Against AFPSA
   -	Manipur: The Irom Sharmila saga
15 Fire Bombing of Samjhauta Express :
  - 	Peace and The Burning Train
  - 	Samjhota Explosion
   - Put The Joint Mechanism To Work
16 Arms Sales To The Region - Plans and The Players:
- Pakistan gets eight attack helicopters
- Russia Works To Remain India's Top Supplier
- Aviation firms descend on India air show
- Reports: India plans aerospace military command to oversee space-based assets
- "Work on nuke deterrence for Navy underway"
- India sets sights on cruise missile market

FULL TEXT AT:
www.sacw.net/peace/IPARMW168.pdf



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