The underlying message of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit is to convey to Pakistan, the US and the others that India has strategic interests in Afghanistan.
India has announced ambitious plans to expand its nuclear energy programme nearly 15 fold in the next 20 years, from the current 4,500 MWe to about 62,000 MWe by 2032. By 2020, India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) plans to install 20,000 MWe of nuclear power generation capacity (the fifth largest in the world). The department has plans beyond 2030 too. According to these plans India will have the capacity to produce 275 GWe (Giga Watt of electricity) of nuclear power by the year 2052.
Despite the talk about India having key strategic interests in Afghanistan, it neither has the necessary resources nor the clout to influence developments in Afghanistan.
To make the transition from the prevalent Nash Equilibrium with its lower payoffs to Pareto-optimal which will yield higher pay offs, India and Pakistan must break away from their traditional thinking of making no concessions.
The people’s movement, in bringing down the former President Hosni Mubarak, has once again showed the power of peaceful protest and ideas. There are many lessons to be learnt from the transformative developments.
Like in the space arena, India has the capability to offer its expertise to other countries in the field of nuclear power and non-nuclear applications.
India is contesting elections for the non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for a two-year term, 2011–12. If elected, it will return to the Security Council after a gap of 18 years. During this long hiatus, the geopolitical environment in the world has changed dramatically. As a member of the UNSC, India will be called upon to deliberate over a host of new issues and threats to international security.
The report provides useful documentation on nuclear issues but falls short of making recommendations which would speed up nuclear disarmament. This is not surprising considering that many of the Commissioners are from nuclear armed states or from ones which enjoy the comfort of a nuclear umbrella. Actually, the report may have the unintended impact of strengthening the hawks in nuclear and security establishments as it fails to put enough moral pressure on them to undertake drastic measures to achieve nuclear disarmament.
