Thursday, June 11, 1998
India of the world
When people all over the world are tuned into browser wars and football tackles, the constant ups and downs in international relations and the accompanying diplomatic chatter must seem like so much avoidable background noise. In the end it is an interdependent world where advances in telecommunications, technology and trade matter more to more lives than the stratagems of politicians. Such thoughts are bound to intrude on the meeting between Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott in Washington on Friday.
Zero in agenda other than nuclear
It is a telling comment on the Vajpayee government that of all the pledges contained in the National Agenda for Governance, it first chose to redeem the one on nuclear testing. It was the easiest promise to keep. Unlike the power ordinance or the urea price hike, the decision to go in for nuclear tests did not need the approval of the BJP's mercurial allies. Nor did it require tedious consultations with a moribund bureaucracy which has a penchant for causing confusion by weighing pros and cons endlessly.
Rein in the town bully
While India was feeling self-assured, Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests. The debate about the actual number of Pakistani tests and their quality in comparison to the Indian tests is really irrelevant if one views the current nuclear situation in macro-level strategic terms. The ground realities are: a nuclear strategic standoff between India and Pakistan, a China-Pakistan strategic and political nexus and the fact that the international reaction, while critical of both India and Pakistan, is less critical of Pakistan.
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