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Politics	Business	Expressions	General
World	Sports	Leisure	States

Tuesday, May 26, 1998

	A critical nuclear divide What are the real choices now that New Delhi has tested the bomb? Do we kowtow and roll back the nuclear programme? Do we behave like a conquered nation and allow international inspection of all our reactors and research plants as required by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? Or do we fight to be recognised by the label Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has used: that of a `nuclear weapons state'?		The right way to manage water Canal area is not growing. Almost the entire expansion of irrigation is from private investment in pumping water. Alternative styles of irrigation are not spreading as fast as they should. Earlier methods of planning are not succeeding as they did then. This time we will sit with the sarkar on canal irrigation.
	Lost horizons Internal security has moved up on the Central government's agenda. As part of the plan to counter insurgency and terrorism, a new set of measures is to be announced at the meeting of the chief ministers of northeastern states which the Union home minister called for mid-June. Home Ministry statistics reveal that counter-insurgency operations in the Northeast have already been stepped up this year. But these are evidently not considered adequate and a change of tactics appears to be on the anvil.		An area of darkness Rajasthan is out to validate the stereotype. The repeat gangrape of the woman who had dared to file charges against her assailants in the Rajasthan University hostel case is only the latest in a chain of events. Within the last week, a BJP MLA has been accused of another gangrape. And in Pali, the rampant use of child labour in hazardous occupations was revealed when some workers were buried alive. Most of them were girls in their early teens.

Break out the diazepam
While some are hogging the limelight others are demanding and begging by turns for a piece of it. While some claim to have successfully embossed the words `nuclear weapons state' on the collective conscience of the Five Pandavas, others feels it was an opportunistic ploy to deflect criticism on the home front.

"Some Congress MLAs are in touch with me, they want to join the BJP"
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Himachal Pradesh has heaved a sigh of relief after the exit of former Union minister and Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC) leader Sukh Ram from the state cabinet. But Sukh Ram continues to be the government's life-support system and has set terms for his party's support to the BJP. He wants the Government to recommend a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged land deals of Congress leader and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh.

The tests were a fait accompli