Communists to protest President Bush's visit to India
by Pinaki Das

    Agartala (Tripura): Left parties have decided to organise a series of protests across the country to protest the forthcoming visit of U.S. President George W Bush to India. Disclosing this at a public meeting here over the weekend, CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said that the Left is completely opposed to the imperialistic policies of the United States, and in this regard the Communist combine has decided to organise country-wide protests from January 24 till Bush arrives in the country sometime next month. "On the 24th of January, the CPI-M is going to conduct a country- wide, anti-imperialist day, which will be building up towards the Bush visit when it will culminate in a big protest action," Karat told reporters. The Communists have been critical of New Delhi's expanding relations with Washington, particularly after India joined the United States to oppose Iran's nuclear programme at a U.N. nuclear watchdog vote in September.

   In a surprise move,New Delhi backed fellow nuclear powers, the United States, France and Britain at the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board meeting on September 24, which passed a resolution against Iran over a failure to convince the agency its nuclear program, was entirely peaceful. The CPI, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) along with some smaller left parties have 61 lawmakers in India's 545-member lower house of Parliament. Energy-hungry India is looking to Iran for gas supplies through a proposed seven to eight billion dollar pipeline that would come through Pakistan. America, which suspects Iran of covertly building nuclear weapons, had disapproved of the project. Strategic, diplomatic and economic ties between India and the United States have blossomed after New Delhi was quick to back Washington's war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks. Washington signed a sweeping nuclear pact with India on July 18 to help New Delhi with its ambitious civilian nuclear programme. Bush is expected to visit India in the middle of February, but the White House is yet to firm up the travel plans. Bush is also likely to visit Pakistan, which has been a key ally of the United States in the global war against terrorism. Preparations for the visit have been on for some time now, though both Washington and New Delhi remain tight-lipped not only the dates of the visit but also in what Bush might be interested in taking up during his visit to India. At one time there was the impression that the US President's visit to India could be towards the end of February or perhaps even pushed to March.

   The latest official exchanges on the subject took place when Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran was in Washington in December. The programme on the Presidential visit is expected to be fine- tuned a little more when Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns visits New Delhi at the end of this month. Senior officials have been talking about expanding bilateral ties. The most talked about area of cooperation in recent days has been the proposed civilian nuclear deal between the two countries in the aftermath of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington last July. This, at one time, was supposed to have been the centrepiece of Bush's visit to India. But now, it is clear that the administration may not be able to send anything firm to Capitol Hill by the end of this month and Congress will not be able to schedule additional hearings on the subject before the first week of February.

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