News Analysis
Manmohan'sagenda for the US
By Geeta
The problem for Dr Singh is that while President Bush would be advising him not to sign up any deal with Iran, the Prime Minister would need the US support for India'sclaim for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. He knows it too well that a mere resolution by the G-4 Club of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil would not suffice.
Officials from India and Pakistan were busy discussing the ambitious Iran gas pipeline project days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to leave for the bilateral visit to the US. Pakistan Petroleum Secretary, Ahmed Waqar, at the end of the talks with his Indian counterpart, S.B. Tripathi, had no alternative but to deflect a question posed to him by the press as to how his country would handle the pressure from the US against this project, billed to provide energy security to the two neighbours and improve positive political fallout.
Little did the pressmen realise that it was not Pakistan but India that would come under the US pressure in the next few days. After all, it is not President Pervez Musharraf but Manmohan Singh who will be meeting President George Bush next week. The US had conveyed its displeasure over the Indian-Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project much before serious talks had begun. Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Manishankar Aiyar's?brave? statements in Parliament in the last session notwithstanding, his Prime Minister will have to face some tough talk for signing a project with Iran, which is considered a ?rogue? nation by the mightiest country in the world. The problem for Dr Singh is that while President Bush would be advising him not to sign up any deal with Iran, the Prime Minister would need the US support for India'sclaim for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. He knows it too well that a mere resolution by the G-4 Club of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil would not suffice for the country to get the coveted position in the UNSC. All the ?political investment? that India has been doing in the past would need a big push from a big nation (not in terms of population, of course!). Either way, the Prime Minister would have pressure to face. After he returns he has to face Parliament and answer some inconvenient questions from the Opposition, including the Left (if we consider them so). But then, there is something called ?abeyance?, which the government, being directed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, has mastered over.
After making claims and counter-claims in the Cabinet decision on BHEL and keeping it in abeyance till completion of the PM'sUS visit, an MoU with Pakistan on gas pipeline project, which would have been signed early this week, has also been kept in abeyance, informed sources said. Another difficult area that the Prime Minister has to handle while dealing with the President Bush would relate to India'sseemingly ?tough? position in the WTO negotiations. While the WTO is a multilateral agency where each nation has an equal voted, it is not difficult to find who controls the levers of the Geneva-based trade watchdog.
While through his media machinery, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath may be making the ?right kind of noises? in the mini minister, (informal) meeting of 30 trade ministers at Dailan in China, India has started giving confusing signals over a host of issues. Take for instance, the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), one of the contentious issues relating to the proposals for reduction of the industrial tariff for opening up the market for the industry. India had all along maintained the position that it would not accept the so-called Swiss formula, which means higher the tariff, higher be the cuts. This way, developing countries would lose, while the rich nations would gain because historically the former had kept the tariff level higher than the latter. But of later, Kamal Nath has started saying that while India would not accept the Swiss formula, it would be ready for a ?Swiss type? formula. It is obvious the pressure is on and this would be further felt by Dr Singh in the US.
After he returns he has to face Parliament and answer some inconvenient questions from the Opposition, including the Left (if we consider them so). But then, there is something called ?abeyance?, which the government, being directed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, has mastered over.
