The Big Story: Nuclear Supplies
Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Washington, DC, having secured in Geneva Swiss backing for India's application to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group. New Delhi has been campaigning for a spot in this forum, which would help India access nuclear technology and fuel more easily, and in May officially applied for membership. Switzerland and Mexico were then added to Modi's itinerary on his way to the US, because both countries have a say in the consensus-based organisation.
India needs all the help it can get within the Nuclear Suppliers Group because of its big neighbour up north. Despite its building momentum, analysts have given India little chance of actually gaining membership to the group since China seems determined to keep it out unless Pakistan is also allowed in the club, despite the latter's woeful record when it comes to nuclear proliferation.
Still, Modi and the Ministry of External Affairs have put in the leg work, visiting a huge number of Nuclear Suppliers Group members and garnering support from them in order to build up a substantial case for member ship. The real test of this effort is not far away. The Nuclear Suppliers Group has an extraordinary meeting planned for June 9, where it is likely to consider applications from both India and Pakistan, and will be having another plenary session by June 25.
Beijing has used the tactic of insisting that Nuclear Suppliers Group members need to be signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even though that would exclude Pakistan too. India's only hope is that it manages to push the US and convince enough of the other nations to support its cause that it leaves China looking like an unreasonable obstacle, which unfortunately is sometimes a role that Beijing enjoys playing.
The Big Scroll
Narendra Modi may have invested immense personal capital, but we need to be realistic about his US visit. Also, an agreement to boost trade in nuclear and solar energy during Narendra Modi’s visit to the US could play a pivotal role in determining the world’s climate future.
Political Picks
1. The defence strategy in Dadri is playing out as expected: A village meeting at the same temple where an announcement was first made about beef, saw residents demand a cow slaughter case against the family of Mohammad Akhlaq, who was murdered by a mob.
2. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav transferred some officials from Mathura after the violence there, but he has trained his guns on the Centre for not sharing information about the "presence of Naxalites".
3. The Congress has shifted 14 independent Members of Legislative Authority from Karnataka to a hotel in Mumbai to keep them isolated ahead of Rajya Sabha elections on June 11. Two stings have suggested serious horse-trading taking place before the Karnataka polls.
4. Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Ajit Jogi is starting a new party to stop the "plunder of natural resources" in the state, although unlike most politicians who do this, he did not criticise the Congress while splitting from it.
5. A Kerala High Court judge said in open court that he had been offered Rs 25 lakh from the gold-smuggling mafia to give a favourable verdict.
Giggle
Punditry
1. Shantanu Mukherji, a retired police officer from Uttar Pradesh, writes in the Indian Express of why the Mathura incidents and intelligence failure should be worrisome.
2. The Hindu, in a leader, makes the argument that India should drop the local sourcing requirement for Foreign Direct Investment in retail altogether, saying it is too arbitrary a policy.
3. Short-term incestuous gains at the expense of long-term and societal good: V Anantha Nageswaran in Mint asks whether we even need financial markets?
Don't Miss
Shruti Ambast says India will grossly fail its children if it revokes the no-detention policy.
"Many still believe that children only learn under the threat of failure. Detaining children is being envisioned as some kind of stopgap measure to improve learning levels, despite there being little evidence that it can do so. Such a reliance on conditional promotion also masks the incapacity of the system to teach first-generation learners and children with special needs, and deal with multi-level classrooms. It is unlikely that detaining children will fix these problems."
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