China intends to spend $50billion to build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analyst say that China will build 300 more by the middle of the century. That would be much to what all the number of nuclear plants in the world generate today. US in comparison has just more than 100 operating nuclear plants, that US has kept building them on hold since 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, so did communist country like Russia after the Chernobyl disaster.
The Chinese economy is expected to be the world's largest, and the idea that it may get most of its electricity from nuclear fission seems very natural. Today China drives only 2.3% of its electricity from nuclear power as compared to US and France that drives 20% and 80%. Nine countries get 40% or more of their electricity from nuclear power. Interestingly many of the developed countries are generating power using nuclear fission.
So China is also taking a similar path to support its economic growth and socio economic growth. Hmm!! should this be a problem. Should we ask for the same for India where the economy is growing at the similar rate, and needs to secure the needs of India's fast growing economy + socio economic growth. Let us debate - "in favor" or "not in favor".
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Impeccable record on non-proliferation
While India is negotiating with the US on the civilian nuclear deal that has captured the media attention on the last 21 months, Indian officials and diasporas supporting the NSG Campaign for India is seeking all support from the NSG members to exempt India from nuclear explort ban... in a positive stance, that the current impasse is a result of economic factor, not political ones. India will have to get the nod of all 45 members if its wants to get the imbargo lifted.
Interestingly the proponents of revision of global nuclear rules in favour of India are US, Russia, France and UK, of which many are pushing to rewrite the rules and allow nuclear trade with India. Recently, China agreeing to promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy with India also showed a significant shift from the past. Even countries like South Africa has absolutely no problems in supporting India and hopes Canada will come out to support. However countries such as New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia are of concern. This is true partially with Japan.
Japanse Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is said to have told the Indian Government that Japan want India firsit to conclude the bilateral civil nuclear-energy pact (refering to section 123 of US Atomic Energy Act of 1954) with US and a safeguard agreement with the IEAA. Japan will decide on supporting India at the NSG only after this. Hmm!! for sure we need the support from Japan ad I would urge every law makers, diplomats, citizens of Japan to support India. To this would urge the Indian diaspora set talk about the issues and reasoning why this is important for us.. make help change the stage. It is only when NSG lift the sanction nuclear energy can become a reality in India - securing the needs of India's fast growing economy + socio economic growth.
Interestingly the proponents of revision of global nuclear rules in favour of India are US, Russia, France and UK, of which many are pushing to rewrite the rules and allow nuclear trade with India. Recently, China agreeing to promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy with India also showed a significant shift from the past. Even countries like South Africa has absolutely no problems in supporting India and hopes Canada will come out to support. However countries such as New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia are of concern. This is true partially with Japan.
Japanse Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is said to have told the Indian Government that Japan want India firsit to conclude the bilateral civil nuclear-energy pact (refering to section 123 of US Atomic Energy Act of 1954) with US and a safeguard agreement with the IEAA. Japan will decide on supporting India at the NSG only after this. Hmm!! for sure we need the support from Japan ad I would urge every law makers, diplomats, citizens of Japan to support India. To this would urge the Indian diaspora set talk about the issues and reasoning why this is important for us.. make help change the stage. It is only when NSG lift the sanction nuclear energy can become a reality in India - securing the needs of India's fast growing economy + socio economic growth.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Politics@ Work
Hmm!! This is not a new subject for the senior managers. I think at one point of time each of us have felt the politics at work, and so have I too in great degree. Oh yes!! Good politics is good and Bad politics is worst. Even though you try to avoid, you still get it and this is why political awareness in an organization will become increasingly important. As one of my colleague Fellow at the CMI says, "Lack of political awareness can have lasting repercussions. If you really want an organization to achive success in today's complex environment, you cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the political dimension of your business or service".
So why!! it all starts from the need to "get things done", which applies in the place of work. Everyone needs political skills to manage and achieve goals. None of us can operate in vacuum, immune from the need to consider the impact of our actions or inactions on others. The good news is that managers are not solely driven by self interest, they do use thier skills to build alliances and gain concensus and they are not the least bit machiavellian about the way they go about it. Politics is simply a fact of life but it is growing in importance and managers needs to know how to play it. Do you all think the same.
So here are few questions for discussion
- do you think most common understanding of "politics" among managers is of alliance-building to achieve organziational objectives.
- do you as managers view politics solely in term of poeple "protecting" their turf or pursuing pesonal advantages
- do shaping key priorities withnin the organization is currently viewed as the most important activity requiring political awareness skills
- Does the future managers prdict a signnificant shift in the needs to use political skills to build external relationships
- Do you as manager think your political awareness is "good" or "excellent".
So why!! it all starts from the need to "get things done", which applies in the place of work. Everyone needs political skills to manage and achieve goals. None of us can operate in vacuum, immune from the need to consider the impact of our actions or inactions on others. The good news is that managers are not solely driven by self interest, they do use thier skills to build alliances and gain concensus and they are not the least bit machiavellian about the way they go about it. Politics is simply a fact of life but it is growing in importance and managers needs to know how to play it. Do you all think the same.
So here are few questions for discussion
- do you think most common understanding of "politics" among managers is of alliance-building to achieve organziational objectives.
- do you as managers view politics solely in term of poeple "protecting" their turf or pursuing pesonal advantages
- do shaping key priorities withnin the organization is currently viewed as the most important activity requiring political awareness skills
- Does the future managers prdict a signnificant shift in the needs to use political skills to build external relationships
- Do you as manager think your political awareness is "good" or "excellent".
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Diaspora gets into the act in NSG countries
Diaspora gets into the act in NSG countries
Section: National Date:May 31,2007
Devirupa Mitra, Soecial Correspondant
NEW DELHI, May 31: Last year marked the ‘coming-out’ party for the Indian-Americans as a visible and effective lobbying bloc at Capitol Hill. Now, one of the main professional lobby groups, Washington-based US India political action committee wants to extrapolate their success in the legislative process in the US into a more widely spread campaign among the Diaspora residing in countries that are members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This public diplomacy effort was actually launched in January, only a couple of weeks after the US President signed the Henry Hyde US-India peaceful atomic energy cooperation act in December 2006. At that time, there was a lot of optimism, at least on the US side, that it would take only a few more meetings to seal the 123 agreement and bring it before the US congress for an “up” or “down” vote. They also knew that India was only willing to conclude a safeguards agreement with the IAEA for its civilian nuclear facilities only after the completion of the bilateral agreement. The 44-member Nuclear Suppliers Group would only take up the US proposal to allow members to transfer items on the trigger list to India, a non-signatory of the NPT, after the 123 agreement was in the bag. Also, several members had insisted that they wanted to assess the safeguards agreement with IAEA, before reaching a decision. The US had first circulated a draft proposal to NSG members in March 2006. Since all decisions are taken by consensus in NSG, there have since been a lot of discussions by both American and Indian officials separately with individual members of the NSG. While the supporters’ bench has heavyweights like US, UK, France and Russia, the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Netherlands and Switzerland had expressed strong reservations. Based on their experience of the lobbying effort learned during the American process, USINPAC has decided to teach their “lessons learnt” to Indians settled in some NSG countries, whose approval would be crucial for India’s efforts to be included in the worldwide nuclear trade regime. A senior information technology executive, Dr. Indranil Nath, is the main driver for the NSG campaign in Japan, where he has been first trying to drive home the importance of NSG issue to the relatively small Indian community. “You do not need to be big and old to make an impact. Even being small and focused would win the race,” he told The Statesman, adding that he expected the majority of the thousand-odd Indian residents in Japan to get involved in the campaign. While the Indian government has brought up the NSG issue with Japan at several forums, there has never been an explicit statement from the Japanese government ~ not exactly surprising considering the traditional non-proliferation position of Japan. Dr. Nath said they were currently planning an intensive contact program through articles in Japanese press, seminars organised by industry chambers, Indian and Japanese companies, invitations to lawmakers in Japan to urge them to support India’s case. In the United Kingdom, Dr Linda Spedding, a corporate lawyer with an international consultancy practice, said that besides e-mail campaigns and workshops with think tanks, the “special focus” would be to encourage the local Indian community to utilise their links with their lawmakers. “We also have close connections with lawmakers through the legal community and the public sector, so the links are already in place,” she told The Statesman. Since Britain is already one of the strongest supporters of India’s case, she said the efforts would be to push UK to be more pro-active in persuading other NSG members who are sitting on the fence. “We will be carrying out an outreach programme to MPs here once the 123 deal is done with the US and we will lobby on the basis that British activity should bring a ‘force multiplier’ effect at the NSG for India given the special position of the UK. Meanwhile, the USINPAC co-founder, Mr Robinder Sachdeva said that the first plan to be executed under the “NSG campaign for India” will be an e-mail campaign next week targeted at over 100,000 people of Indian origin living in various NSG member states. But, for all this to actually get off the ground, India and the US will have to successfully complete their negotiations for a bilateral agreement, which will be politically acceptable for the leadership of both countries, which is far from a done deal.
Section: National Date:May 31,2007
Devirupa Mitra, Soecial Correspondant
NEW DELHI, May 31: Last year marked the ‘coming-out’ party for the Indian-Americans as a visible and effective lobbying bloc at Capitol Hill. Now, one of the main professional lobby groups, Washington-based US India political action committee wants to extrapolate their success in the legislative process in the US into a more widely spread campaign among the Diaspora residing in countries that are members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This public diplomacy effort was actually launched in January, only a couple of weeks after the US President signed the Henry Hyde US-India peaceful atomic energy cooperation act in December 2006. At that time, there was a lot of optimism, at least on the US side, that it would take only a few more meetings to seal the 123 agreement and bring it before the US congress for an “up” or “down” vote. They also knew that India was only willing to conclude a safeguards agreement with the IAEA for its civilian nuclear facilities only after the completion of the bilateral agreement. The 44-member Nuclear Suppliers Group would only take up the US proposal to allow members to transfer items on the trigger list to India, a non-signatory of the NPT, after the 123 agreement was in the bag. Also, several members had insisted that they wanted to assess the safeguards agreement with IAEA, before reaching a decision. The US had first circulated a draft proposal to NSG members in March 2006. Since all decisions are taken by consensus in NSG, there have since been a lot of discussions by both American and Indian officials separately with individual members of the NSG. While the supporters’ bench has heavyweights like US, UK, France and Russia, the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Netherlands and Switzerland had expressed strong reservations. Based on their experience of the lobbying effort learned during the American process, USINPAC has decided to teach their “lessons learnt” to Indians settled in some NSG countries, whose approval would be crucial for India’s efforts to be included in the worldwide nuclear trade regime. A senior information technology executive, Dr. Indranil Nath, is the main driver for the NSG campaign in Japan, where he has been first trying to drive home the importance of NSG issue to the relatively small Indian community. “You do not need to be big and old to make an impact. Even being small and focused would win the race,” he told The Statesman, adding that he expected the majority of the thousand-odd Indian residents in Japan to get involved in the campaign. While the Indian government has brought up the NSG issue with Japan at several forums, there has never been an explicit statement from the Japanese government ~ not exactly surprising considering the traditional non-proliferation position of Japan. Dr. Nath said they were currently planning an intensive contact program through articles in Japanese press, seminars organised by industry chambers, Indian and Japanese companies, invitations to lawmakers in Japan to urge them to support India’s case. In the United Kingdom, Dr Linda Spedding, a corporate lawyer with an international consultancy practice, said that besides e-mail campaigns and workshops with think tanks, the “special focus” would be to encourage the local Indian community to utilise their links with their lawmakers. “We also have close connections with lawmakers through the legal community and the public sector, so the links are already in place,” she told The Statesman. Since Britain is already one of the strongest supporters of India’s case, she said the efforts would be to push UK to be more pro-active in persuading other NSG members who are sitting on the fence. “We will be carrying out an outreach programme to MPs here once the 123 deal is done with the US and we will lobby on the basis that British activity should bring a ‘force multiplier’ effect at the NSG for India given the special position of the UK. Meanwhile, the USINPAC co-founder, Mr Robinder Sachdeva said that the first plan to be executed under the “NSG campaign for India” will be an e-mail campaign next week targeted at over 100,000 people of Indian origin living in various NSG member states. But, for all this to actually get off the ground, India and the US will have to successfully complete their negotiations for a bilateral agreement, which will be politically acceptable for the leadership of both countries, which is far from a done deal.
The ABC of India's nuclear economics
Here is a article by Robinder Sachdev - New Delhi, India. Robinder is a co-founder and director of the US India Political Action Committee, and president of the Imagindia Institute. The views expressed are personal.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/31guest.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/31guest.htm
NSG Campaign for India
So let me introduce to all of you about what NSG Campaign for India is all about. The NSG Campaign for India has already begun and it needs vibrant inputs from social entrepreneurs, community leaders, and the passive Indian Diasporas across the globe, lobbying in their home countries to support India’s case at the NSG, people of Indian origin can make a landmark contribution to India’s energy security, and thereby its socio-economic growth. By engaging with law makers, opinion leaders, think tanks, media, and the nuclear power industry in their adopted homelands, we except every diaspora can add the punch of public diplomacy to the efforts of the people of India to obtain rightful access to civil nuclear energy. The campaign is headed by Robinder Sachdev – New Delhi, India, who is an expert on US-India relations and economic diplomacy; Dolly Kapoor – Simi Valley, California, who has conceptualized and led nationwide grassroots campaigns in the US, and also earlier in Botswana; Dr Linda Spedding – London , who serves on several committees, including the SCI Business Strategy Committee, India Task Force and is an International Sustainability Advisor to the CII and to TERI in India; Vidhya Sampath – Rotterdam, The Netherlands, who is an alumnis of the Centre of Environment Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad India and finally me - Dr. Indranil Nath – Tokyo, Japan. Check out http://www.nsgcampaign.com/ for more details.
Joining the Bloggers Park
Friends!! - I finally could not resist myself. Had been watching and reading blogs for quite some time now. It looks today every tom-dick-harry has a blog. Interesting!! If I go back even 5 years back chronicales, common places of adda (gossips), diaries, perzines or amateur press associations or even a community club were the common place to communicate/participate and all can be seen as predecessors of blogs. Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms. I remember there were few commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists and bulletin board systems (BBS). I remember way back in 1995 I was part of the translation list in Japan and would get 100s of email a day created running conversations with "threads", though that was not too common. Today some have likened blogging to the mass-obervation movement of the mid-20th century.. the world has changed - from am information age to the participation age. Not sure if this is for good or not.. that I see people stuck in front of the computers communicating..participating.. dating... creating their own space in the world. Hmm!! so had to start myself and check what this was with a couple of objectives. First, share about topics related to business and software engineering. How this is developing in Japan. Second, drive the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) campaign for India in Japan and have the Indian diaspora in Japan engaged. So lets me see how effective the tool "Blogspot" could be.
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