Kalabaaz :: Blog

Oh Obama... I'd never do that

Kalabaaz — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:50:58 +0530

My friend DK sent me this prank video where I have been singled out as the fucker responsible for Obama's defeat.

Obama's Loss Traced To Navneet

Don't be a non-voter. It could mean another four years of Republican horror.

RSS' Hindu Woman

Kalabaaz — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:33:24 +0530

In a revealing, though not entirely surprising, exposé of the Hindu organization, the Rashtra Swayam Sevak (RSS), Sanjana from Tehelka reports on her experience with Saffron Techies. This is fundamentalism, madrassa style, for the India shining IT sector.

To make themselves more appealing to this "educated", tech-savvy class, the RSS has forgone its strict requirements that all its cadets wear ankle length shorts. I don't know if you've seen any RSS cadets. I have, and they frequently assemble outside temples in Bombay, especially during festivals.

Even though it is so depressing to see what has happened to India, at some level of complete cynicism one can't help but laugh at the stupid khaki shorts these grown up men wear as they walk like toddlers marching towards the glorious Hindu Rashtra. Its a perfect image for Incredible India. Completely brain-washed robots ready to die or kill for their God and Nation.

Well, the Hamas of India, has upgraded its level and now holds meetings where mukhyashikshaks (headmasters) teach Hindu pride to IT professionals. This is going on, in the "all over the world-famous" Bengaluru.

The Milton Friedman Choir

Kalabaaz — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:00:47 +0530

Song and Music may be the antidote to jolt you awake. Here are Milton Friedman's words presented by the most surreal Milton Friedman Choir or more aptly, a requiem for your dreams.

M. Friedman is dead, it is perhaps time to rethink his ideas.

Chomsky on the Financial Crisis

Kalabaaz — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:01:52 +0530

Traveling around now a days so can't find much time to blog properly, but till I actively resume: Here's Noam writing in the Irish Times about the U.S Financial crisis and its anti-democratic nature.

Anti-democratic nature of US capitalism is being exposed

By Noam Chomsky

THE SIMULTANEOUS unfolding of the US presidential campaign and unraveling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature.

Passion about the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and healthcare at risk.

The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of totalitarianism that they were quickly modified. Under intense lobbyist pressure, they were reshaped as "a clear win for the largest institutions in the system . . . a way of dumping assets without having to fail or close", as described by James Rickards, who negotiated the federal bailout for the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, reminding us that we are treading familiar turf.

No Spoofs Please... We're Hindus

Kalabaaz — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:31:36 +0530

You either get it or you don't. Devendra Banhart's solitary claim to fame, at least in pop culture, so far, has been that he's Natalie Portman's ex-boyfriend. On his own, he comes across as a psychedelic rebel looking to affront. He ain't no Allen Ginsberg when it comes to the standard of psychedelic rebels but I thought he was amusing to read at least in this article that he wrote after his break up with Natalie Portman. He's also a songwriter, singer and a musician whose career, well at least I haven't been following.

His new music video for the song Carmensita, from his album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, is a spoof of Ramayana and has gotten Hindu Religious scholars all riled up.

You're all a bunch of Wankers

Kalabaaz — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:39:06 +0530

That giant database of information, Google, is at the command of our demands. A statistical aggregate of our searches within this information offers a peek into the Zeitgeist, defined as:

zeitgeist | Pronunciation: 'tsIt-"gIst, 'zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.

So what is the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of our era? All trends seem to suggest that it is Page 3 bullshit and you're all a bunch of voyeuristic wankers.

Mickey Must Die!

Kalabaaz — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:07:07 +0530

While Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert remain favorites, I have a problem with them. They are too intelligent. When one is looking for dumb stuff, you know the kind that is sensitive to the needs of the Lowest Common Denominator, it is far more rewarding to turn to self-proclaimed Religious custodians. My favorite has been televangelist Pat Robertson who among other things had this to say about the feminist movement:

(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.

Nice going there preacher but I think I've found a strong contender. The Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid had this to say about women in Olympics:

How come modern sports - especially women's sports - involve the exposure of private parts? It is well known that the Olympics - both in the past and the upcoming games... the world's worst display of women's clothing is the women's Olympics. No exposure of women's private parts on a global scale could make Satan happier than Olympic games that include women's sports.

Wrestling involves the exposure of women's private parts. Even the promotion of the competitions is done by scantily clad women. This is done at the beginning of the match, in the middle, and at the end, or so I hear... the matches are promoted by half-naked women.

Mackerel Money

Kalabaaz — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:15:18 +0530

We are all aware that our currencies are legal tender. A Dollar bill, for example, is a note issued by the US Federal Reserve and clearly and coldly states: "This Note is Legal Tender for all Debts, Public and Private". It is signed by the Treasurer of the United States.

The Indian Rupee is a note issued by the Reserve Bank of India and guaranteed by the Central Government. It has a tone that reads more like a dramatic oath: "I Promise to pay the bearer the Sum of Five Rupees" (or whatever amount is boldly printed as the number on that note). It is signed by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India so probably the "I" in the promise refers to the person holding Governor's office.

This piece of paper is accepted by those who believe in the stated promise as a legitimate form of exchange for goods or services. It also means that if I were to pay a visit to the Governor, with this legal tender in hand, he'd be bound to give me the "Sum" of five rupees. Traditionally that "Sum" is supposed to be in Gold. It is inherently understood that this piece of paper is worthless and behind every such piece of paper issued, the Government has enough Gold, Silver or some commodity of "Real Value" guaranteed, otherwise that banking system is counterfeit and can be sued for bankruptcy. This is known as the Gold Standard. The quantum of Gold actually available with the RBI or its subsidiaries is not revealed in India. It would be foolish to think that there is so much Gold inside the RBI except for a Bollywood film. In reality it is more like this: A rupee can be returned to the issuing bank in exchange for a rupee worth of the bank’s assets [link]. This shift from actual Gold to something of "Real Value" is enforced by an order (fiat) of the Government and hence the term Fiat Currency.

If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It

Kalabaaz — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:27:39 +0530

In 1987 Ken Livingston, that magical aberration in British Politics, published his autobiography with a really honest title: If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It.

That title came to mind when I read my friend Aarti's piece on Pen Tehsil's referendum, a must read, where they refused Mukesh Bhai's brotherly love in favor of keeping their ancestral lands.

And then this morning, the Slimes had this article where they seem surprised and shocked in their headline: Anti-Nano farmers in Andhra too.

Why won't those illiterate, anti-development motherfuckers give up their land? Can't they see that this is for their and India's greater good? Take the money and get out, go live in a slum in Mumbai.

I wouldn't be surprised if soon this stupid, new experiment of democratic referendum is taken off the tables and we return to the tried and tested use of brutal force to acquire land. This kind of voting is changing things and making it difficult for India Inc. Change is a constant only as long as it constantly favors the powerful.

Update: Here's a Social Impact Assessment Report prepared by Tata Institute of Social Sciences for Sea King Infrastructure Ltd. (Sea King is the promoter for the Reliance SEZ) [PDF Link]

Mapping Sarah

Kalabaaz — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:56:21 +0530

In this hilarious rant against the profound dumbness of Sarah Palin, Aden Renkai puts her in her place:

Sarah Palin is a stupid, self important, ignorant bitch who I wouldn’t put in charge of wiping her own ass. And it’s not just that she’s dumb - which she is - it’s that she’s willfully ignorant of the facts and yet absolutely dead-bang certain that she’s right about her opinions. It’s more of this “governing from the gut” bullshit that we’ve been Chimping along with for the past eight years.

And here's Palin's debate flowchart from Aden Renkai's caustically funny take on the vice-presidential debate.

Thanks Adam.

IT vs Roti

Kalabaaz — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:42:48 +0530

The chameleonic changes happening in India are capable of reviving surrealist non-sequiturs. How can Information Technology (IT) be pitted against bread (Roti)? Such improbable opponents can only emerge from either the laboratories of Victor Frankenstein or economic scientists at the World Trade Organization.

Incessant repetitions have convinced the world, including the dying polar bears and penguins at the poles, that there is an IT revolution going on in India. Believe me, walking the streets of India outside of Bangalore or Gurgaon, it feels like a facetious rumor.

There are a lot of back-office, low-end jobs percolating down to India essentially because of the low wages our accent-trained English speaking young are willing to accept. The real human beings behind the pseudonyms of Mary Janes and Joe Smiths are not unaware of their exploitation. Living in a shortsighted culture that promotes the present, in the moment, instant gratification as the highest value, it is their only option for individual independence. In the pursuit of their individualism they are unwilling to question the greed of their employers. When their Government prostrates to the power of Corporations and legal due process is a farce (remember Bhopal) they are smart enough to shut up and show up for work at the stroke of the midnight hour.

Muscle Power

Kalabaaz — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0530

I thought this was hilarious, especially the mustached demon jaw of Bush layered on what is most certainly Arnold's steroid pumped body.

Demonstration against the India-U.S. nuclear deal in Hyderabad, India, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

The Thieves of India

Kalabaaz — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:59:11 +0530

The Times Group is India's largest media conglomerate with a turnover of over USD $700 million. It has eleven publishing centers, fifteen printing centers, fifty five sales offices and over seven thousand employees. It owns five dailies, thirty one magazines, thirty two radio stations and reaches you, your children and your dog in two thousand four hundred and sixty eight cities and towns. Through its subsidiary companies it has interests in major radio, television, film and online businesses.

It is fair to say that the trap of this media composite is inescapable if you are in anyway connected to India. With ownership of such mass media, The Times Group exemplifies how modern corporatism has turned the meaning of language upside down. Mass Media is no longer mass if it is held by a couple of entities. The 'mass' in mass media was meant to be us, the masses. Mass media means people's media, not corporate media injected into people's veins. It means the media is of the people not a media which steals from the people.

Rotten Carrot, Permanent Stick

Kalabaaz — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:14:25 +0530

Last month I'd written about the core issues around the US-Indo Nuclear deal. Yesterday the House of Representatives in the US Congress cleared the Nuclear Deal with 298 out of 415 members voting in favor. With only ten Republicans against it, most of the opposition (107 votes) came from the Democrats. It might be insightful to study the fund-raisers and contributions by the neo-conservative USINPAC to those who voted in favor. Even though the US Senate still has to clear it, after a 71% vote from Congress chances are that this is a done deal. And we are done for as Manmohan tells Bush:

“Mr. President, People of India deeply love you”.

In my initial rage I hurled abuses at both the huggers, especially the turbaned one for having the audacity to lick ass of a depraved criminal using our name, but soon returned to sanity. There is enough insanity going on. At least the turbaned one is displaying some emotion which is otherwise comparable to that of a paper-weight.

The Playboy and the Town Girl

Kalabaaz — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:38:54 +0530

This son of a rich Karachi businessman, Asif Ali Zardari, was never meant to be the President of Pakistan. He was the guy you'd write about only if discussing corrupt husbands living in the shadows of 10% commission. The moniker Mr. Ten Percent, though appropriate, seems incomplete to describe him. He's also a man known for his frills, a philandering playboy and a lecherous womanizer.

Every time he opens his mouth, he begins by raising the specter of his late wife "Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto" as a copyrighted trademark. Once the formalities of announcing his claim to fame have been dispensed with, he'll break into the most gratuitous display of teeth, which he thinks passes off for a welcoming smile. One can almost see that behind the grinning eyes lies a conniving idiot-savant figuring out the rules of this new game he's playing. With this non graduate at the helm of power in Pakistan, I think the subcontinent has found its local version of President Bush. Just like Bush's Bushims, we can begin compiling Zardari's Zardarisms.

I'll start by pointing out this one:

Sign o' the Times

Kalabaaz — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:10:15 +0530

On 23rd September, 1932, Pritilata Waddedar led a bomb attack with 10 men on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, Bengal. The raid was successful but she was unable to escape and was trapped by the police. She consumed potassium cyanide as her next best option. The target, the European Pahartali Club, was chosen because it bore this offensive sign at its entrance:

"Dogs and Indians not allowed"

Seventy six years later, I was in Pune for some work this week and I came across this sign outside a posh residential complex:

Sanity egresses

Kalabaaz — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:00:52 +0530

In the aftermath of multiple blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi, within the last 2 months, Indian politicians and the mediascape have notched up the din on combating Terrorism with tougher terror laws. Even a catchy name has been assigned to the blasts that gels with the foot-tapping beats and motion graphics of News Networks. Operation BAD (Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi). The nifty acronym optimistically presumes that this might be the end of the operation since Delhi was bombed on the 13th of September.

The responsibility of the blasts was taken by a group that calls itself the Indian Mujahideen. In perverted displays of machismo, the group sent out emails to media networks and SMS messages to cops, minutes before the blasts, presaging the inevitable certainty of what was about to happen and taunting them to stop it if they could. Perhaps this was their idea of fair play and feeling invincible. Twenty one people were killed in Delhi that day.

When a bomb rips through a busy public place it kills without prejudice. It does not discriminate between a man, woman or a child, a believer or a kaffir, rich or poor, black, white, brown or yellow. It is unbiased as the harbinger of death and destruction to all those and that within its periphery. As it shamelessly robs its victims of life, it also rips through the social bonds they carry with their loved ones. Just like the barbarity of those who planted it and the truculence of a Government that vows revenge, a bomb is apathetic to that extended adjunct of its prey. These families and friends are left to deal with their psychological wounds on their own. Then there are those who are left maimed at the borders. A lost limb, a lost sense, shredded skin and a benumbed mind. These scars of trauma they carry for the rest of their lives.

À la carte Écouter

Kalabaaz — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:01:14 +0530

From Reuters:

PATNA, India, Aug 18 (Reuters) - A state government in eastern India is encouraging people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

Authorities in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, are asking rich and poor alike to switch to eating rats in a bid to reduce the dependence on rice. They even plan to offer rats on restaurant menus.

"Eating of rats will serve twin purposes -- it will save grains from being eaten away by rats and will simultaneously increase our grain stock," Vijay Prakash, an official from the state's welfare department, told Reuters.

Officials say almost 50 percent of India's food grains stocks are eaten away by rodents in fields or warehouses.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, Bihar's caste and tribe welfare minister, said rat meat was a healthy alternative to expensive rice or grains, and should be eaten by one and all.

"We are very serious to implement this project since the food crisis is turning serious day by day," Manjhi, who has eaten rats, told Reuters.

In Bihar, rat meat is already eaten by Mushars, a group of lower caste Hindus, as well as poorer sections of society.

Never to be reported in TOI. What's next Mr. Chidambaram?

Thanks to Raj Patel for the link.

Krishi Darshan: Stuffed and Starved

Kalabaaz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:47:44 +0530

For those of you born in the nineties or later, unaware of the word "Krishi Darshan": it is a TV program started in 1966 on Doordarshan - the Indian State sponsored Television channel. It literally translates to "A look at Agriculture".

In the eighties, growing up as an urban kid, it was the most boring program one could imagine watching, but then there was nothing else to watch. The dullest anchors interviewed the dullest speakers on the nature of soil, various low and high productivity seeds and ways to improve crops using chemicals and fertilizers. The National Propaganda and our lie-infested school books harped about how successful the Green Revolution was.

The underlying theme of all propaganda was: hold your head and your cock high because socialist India is going great guns. Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan (Hail the Soldier, Hail the Farmer). And so the pseudo socialist spin went on till 1991 when we were informed by the then finance minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, that India was about to go bankrupt!

Compared to today, some may remember that as a more innocent time. But that would be a romantic fallacy. Indira's India was as corrupt as today's India. The only difference being that there was a sense of shame in corruption (or maybe even that is my childhood imagination). Today, that shame, imagined or otherwise, has certainly gone away. Now we boldly proclaim our right to plunder and call it "Free Market". And of course a lot more have joined the orgy giving it a notion of democratic participation.

The Final Solution

Kalabaaz — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:39:37 +0530

Five years ago, in 2003, Rakesh Sharma made a documentary film, the Final Solution about the politics of hate in Gujarat. It chronicled the instigation and aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat Riots.

These riots broke out after the burning of Coach S/6, on the Sabarmati Express, in Godhra, on February 27th, 2002. Fifty eight people (23 men, 15 women and 20 children) were killed, burnt to death by a mob, while returning from a pilgrimage from Ayodhya. Using these killings as an excuse, the Hindutva outfits VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal (members of the Sangh Parivar) unleashed mass riots in which close to two thousand people were killed and over a hundred and fifty thousand people displaced. Most of them were Muslims.

The Sangh Parivar (family of strong associations) is a group of various political parties. The BJP, which controlled both the state and national government, at the time of the riots, is the largest member of this family. The Prime Minster of India, at that time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee started his political career as a member of the RSS. The BJP chief minister of Gujarat, Narinder Modi has close ties to the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

When the riots went on unchecked for over two months, till May 2002, allegations started surfacing that these riots were pre-planned, organized and aided by local authorities with carte blanche from the Government. It was a serious charge because if these allegations were true, it meant the government of Gujarat was aiding the massacre of its own people divided on lines of religion.

Get Your War On: The Cross

Kalabaaz — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:52:45 +0530

Another awesome GYWO episode - thanks to the hilarious work being done at 236

The Missionary Position

Kalabaaz — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:38:49 +0530

The Church is often accused of funding missions to convert people to Christianity. It is no secret that funds are openly made available for various proselytizing programs. But this isn't new news to anyone familiar with history. The Great Commission has been going on since the Roman Empire thorough the middle ages. After Islam came into the picture in the 7th Century it was but, only a matter of time before the Crusades began. These bloody religious wars changed the face of human society forever. Crusaders, greedy for power, masked themselves as holy warriors spreading the word of their respective Gods. Though the 13th century marked a calendared end to the Crusades, its consequences are felt even in the contemporary world. One could easily make the case that the Crusades are still going on.

Once America was discovered, the Church found a new zeal to pursue its proselytizing agenda. European powers such as Spain, France and Portugal frequently justified their Colonial efforts as spreading the message of Jesus and doing the work of God (God has been a handy term of abuse since its invention). So, alongside the genocide of the American Indians and the profitable slave trade a rapid and often forceful conversion to Christianity was taking place across the Americas and Africa. The indigenous wild pagan tribes had to be civilized.

Ubuntu - Reflect my Humanity

Kalabaaz — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:30:55 +0530

While many of you may have come to know the word "Ubuntu" through the Linux based operating system it is worth getting to know its meaning which is deeply philosophical. Ubuntu is an ancient Bantu word and, like many ancient words, it is open to interpretation. Desmond Tutu describes it as:

A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

It is somewhat similar to the concept of Ä€tman in Hinduism though I understand Ubuntu as more humanist with lesser religious connotations. I personally liked what Chris Abani has to say about Ubuntu. In his talk at TED he said:

The only way for me to be Human is for you to reflect my Humanity back at me.

Simple, poetic and thoughtful. Reading Chris Abani, his sensitivity to human stories and the way he tells it, is reminiscent of reading Tagore. Abani, a Nigerian Heebo, is an English writer, poet and musician. His work is political in nature but very human in its telling. It mostly revolves around themes of lost and created identities and the absence of objectivity in human society. Graceland or his latest Song for Night are great books on American exported Pop Culture mixed with the reality of War, Greed and Corruption in conflict ravaged Africa.

Robots screwing Robots

Kalabaaz — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:20:06 +0530

America seems to be the land of abstractions, where numbers have taken on an existence of their own in phrases like "57 Varieties," "the 5 and 10," or "7 Up" and "behind the 8-ball." It figures. Perhaps this is a kind of echo of an industrial culture that depends heavily on prices, charts, and figures. Take 36-24-36. Numbers cannot become more sensuously tactile than when mumbled as the magic formula for the female figure while the haptic* hand sweeps the air.

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
Marshall McLuhan, 1964

* The Greeks referred to the faculty of touch as the "haptic" sense.

Quantitative analysis is the foundation on which logic, science and reason stand. So great is our dependency on quantitative analysis that when something doesn't make sense we refer to the numbers. Numbers are seen as the unbiased validation of truth. Our faith in numbers is the basis of testing intelligence, of calculating progress, of creating economic models. The Number can tell you if you are happy or not, it can detect if you are lying or telling the truth. It can even pronounce you mentally insane. We strengthen our arguments by backing it up with numbers because everyone trusts the number. We measure success by numbers. And if the numbers don't add up, we attribute that to human error. The Supremacy of the Number even allows us to predict and control chaos and the unknown. It enables us to see into the future.

The abstract power of the Number is felt most tangibly in Economics. Today, Chaos Math and Game Theory are commonly applied to predict the Stock Market, the World Economy, Inflation, Employment, the GDP and even Poker Games (which a lot of people take quite seriously). In fact, Game Theory originated as a model to predict results in a Poker Game.

The first political applications of Game Theory are traced back to the paranoia of the Cold War years. In the late fifties it was used, at the Rand Corporation, to play out different scenarios of nuclear war and how to avert it. Simple quantitative models of human nature were drawn, based on radars that monitored Soviet activity, fed into a computer and then used by strategists to predict Soviet behavior and decide US policy. It was the first step to believing that we could incorporate the enemy into our own thinking. We could harness the power of the Number and mathematically predict how we and our enemy would play on a set of known and unknown rules.

But underlying Game Theory was a dark vision of human beings. That we were driven only by self-interest and constantly distrustful of those around us. One mathematician at Rand, John Nash (who entered pop culture through the film A Beautiful Mind) set out to show that this dark vision was not just applicable to the Cold War but could be used to create stability in all of Human Society. To prove his thesis, he invented a series of cruel games, the most famous of which he called "Fuck You Buddy".

Speaking of Nuclear matters

Kalabaaz — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:50:48 +0530

Over the last month, I have been struggling to understand the nuclear deal and its intricacies. It was all made more complex by the acronyms (NSG, ENR, 123, Hyde Act), the cacophony (The Left, the BJP), the babel (Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Indian Media) and then the crisis (The July no-confidence motion against the UPA government). Somewhere in this mayhem, we lost perspective on what this ruckus is all about. Most "expert" opinions seemed to be either following ideology or emotional dribble rather than offering any logical arguments.

To be for it or against it, it is first important to understand it. I will try to explain it as simply and clearly as possible. The Hyde Act is a good place to start. It is an act initiated by the late Republican Rep. Henry J. Hyde and passed by the US Congress in January 2006. Current US policy forbids dealing, in nuclear technology, with nations that are not part of the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. Currently India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are the only countries that are not part of it. The Hyde Act is an unusual exception made only for India. In fact, both Israel and Pakistan have demanded similar treaties but the US has refused.

While it may be of interest to think about why Uncle Sam is making this exception for India (after all, he's not really your Uncle), I think this line of thought opens up a hornet's nest of other political discussions (China, Afghanistan, India's anti-Iran vote, US hegemony, geopolitics etc.) and takes us away from the most moot question. One that we in India should really be asking.

India needs much more energy for its economy to grow and nuclear energy has been around for almost half a century. There are currently over 30 countries, including India, that are using nuclear power for energy purposes. None of these other nations have any special treaties with the US. So why does India need special permission? Once you ask yourself that question, the cacophonous din begins to die and the puzzle starts making sense.