The fate of India’s government, torn between saving itself or a nuclear pact with Washington, will likely be decided this week with the specter of early polls looming, analysts and leaders say.
Tensions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led government and the four-party leftwing alliance supporting it in parliament have been running high since last July over the deal clinched with Washington in 2006.
Last week the spat worsened, with Singh appearing ready to risk his minority government and implement the pact with the US, despite fierce objections from the communists.
The agreement would give India access to civilian nuclear technology even though it has not signed global non-proliferation pacts.
On Friday, the leftists issued their strongest warning yet to the government, saying they would join hands with their arch rivals, the opposition Hindu nationalists, to bring it down if Singh went ahead with deal.
A government official who wished to remain unnamed said the prime minister and Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi would decide the deal’s future before Singh visits Japan on July 7 for the G8 summit.
Political analyst Rasheed Kidwai noted Gandhi “put a lot of effort into cobbling together this coalition” five years ago.
“She would not like to break off ties with any party or group in haste, she is not known to take decisions without thought,” he said.
A senior Congress leader said the party was consulting all allies and would take a final decision by Wednesday when a last round of talks with the left is slated.
Syndicated columnist Neerja Chowdhury said the communists’ moves were ideologically driven.
“The left is opposed to a strategic partnership with the US — this is the diet on which their cadres have been brought up. If they go against this, their cadres will desert them,” she said.
Meanwhile, efforts have been started by some small political groups within Singh’s coalition “to find a position acceptable to both sides,” said a leader from southern India, who did not wish to be named.
“We do not want to risk national polls right now with inflation at over 11 percent,” the leader said.
Annual inflation jumped on Friday to 11.05 percent from 8.75 percent a week earlier, and economists say the rate is headed higher due to record global crude oil prices.
“The high inflation drastically restricts the scope of any political heroics on the nuclear deal,” the Times of India newspaper said on Saturday.
National polls are due by next May, and Congress is seen as preferring to hold the elections over the winter when the weather is cooler.
Singh has argued the deal is vital to India’s energy security as the country already imports 70 percent of its crude needs and the figure is expected to rise.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
RSS