NUCLEAR WASTE- WHEN THE PURSUIT OF SECURITY TRAMPS PROSPERITY
(M.V. Ramana, C.Rammanohar Reddy (eds.), Prisoners of the Nuclear
Dream, Orient Longman Private Limited, Hyderabad, India, 2003, ISBN:
81-250-2477-8, 507 pages)
Silviu PETRE
National University of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest
Tel: 0040-0318.08.97 E-mail: silviugeopolitic@yahoo.com
As our globalized present is determined, both in the media and in the academic literature by the US-Western led timetable, contemporary historicaln arrative is fragmented between an ante 9/11 part and a post 9/11 era with consequences still unfolding. In doing so, we tend to forget that other regions of the world may have different timetables with logics and developments of their own, without being just footnotes of the CNN&BBC construction of attention. Indian- Pakistani border, probably the most potentially explosive in the world has been consumed by years of low level skirmishes punctuated here and there by high voltage moments. The most climactic of them in the post Cold War period was bracketed between May 1998 nuclear tests and the December 2001 attack against the Indian parliament by members of terrorist group Lakhsar e Taiba (LeT). During this interval and some time after both nations covered their disputed border with roughly half of million soldiers. A worrisome reminder of what meant the Cuban missile crisis or the Sino-Soviet border embroilment in late ’60. Around the time of our writing coincides with several worth-mentioning aniversaries: sixty years since president Dwight Eisenhower put into operation <Atoms for Peace>initiative; twenty five years to date the Indo-Soviet agreement to provide two 1100 MW VVER reactors Kundankulam, Tamil Nadu; fifteen years distance from the above mentioned dual tests in 1998; five years since the completion of US-Indo Civil Nuclear Agreement and last but not least since Mumbai 26/11, South Asia’s echo of September 11 or London 07/07/2005.