by a Thinker, Sailor, Blogger, Irreverent Guy from Madras

First ever Nuclear Safety Study praises and slams India


This is breaking news from NYT, barely 2 hours old, on a study/ ranking which is a joint endeavour of the Nuclear Threat Initiative [http://www.nti.org/], a private group in Washington, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, a company in London that does risk analyses. Their goals are to incite debate on how to promote security and to encourage governments to strengthen safeguards against atomic terrorism.
[note:  above text shamelessly copied from the NYT article]
:-D

Now by tomorrow (in India) I’m sure people like the Koodankulam anti-nuke idiots will go to town, with tom-toms, that India is ranked 28 out of 32 and only Vietnam, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea are behind us.  To be fair, it was really worrying and jolted even me.

A little peek into the the Nuclear Threat Initiative website for the assessment on India, made me breathe easy and I would continue to sleep like an innocent child that I am, barely 100 km from the Kalpakkam Nuclear Plant.

For the India page [http://www.ntiindex.org/countries/india/] reassures that my India is 100% capable on the 4 most important issues of concern:
  • International Legal Commitments = 100
  • On-site Physical Protection = 100
  • Response Capabilities = 100
  • UNSCR 1540 Implementation = 100
  • Control and Accounting Procedures = 80

We failed on secondary (but still important) issues like security during transportation, independent regulatory authority, transparency and Anna Hazare’s pet issue - Corruption.
  • Nuclear Security and Materials Transparency = 33
  • Pervasiveness of Corruption = 25
  • Sites and Transportation = 17
  • Independent Regulatory Agency = 0
  • Material Production / Elimination Trends = 0
  • Physical Security During Transport = 0
We are rated right in the middle on other criteria, some of them over which we have no control.
  • Voluntary Commitments = 60
  • Political Stability = 55
  • Domestic Nuclear Materials Security Legislation = 50
  • Group(s) Interested in Illicitly Acquiring Materials = 50
  • Safeguards Adoption and Compliance = 50
  • Security Personnel Measures = 50
  • Quantities of Nuclear Materials = 38
What can we do w.r.t. political stability or groups interested in acquiring materials?  OTOH, if we are willing to sign NPT and give up nuclear option forever, our voluntary commitments score can go to 100.  Similarly as long we continue to have Nuke plants for weapons, without IAEA safeguards, the safeguards compliance score can never exceed 50.

Again compare this score with that of the 10th ranked Germany, which the anti-nuke idiots hold out as a beacon.  Because they’ve signed NPT, their material production/elimination, legislation, voluntary commitments, safeguard adoption are rated at 100.  So they go at rank 10, which is 18 places above.

But all the same, we too can be there at 15 or so, if we can ensure transportation security and site security.

Rest all as mentioned above, is really out of our hands - and to be blunt - don’t actually matter.

Even if we have a change of Government every 3 years, no one is going to ever press the nuclear button (at least I don’t think so).  God forbid, even if it is Illusion, Love or Victory with the hand on the button, instead of the Wisdom that is now.
 
Wisdom, Illusion, Love or Victory - I hope you get the meaning;  if not just look up the Indian baby names for equivalent.  /LOL/.

If anyone ever suggests that India sign the NPT, I would shred him or her, alas, only in monkeyshine nutworks.  So it is with allied criteria like domestic legislation and transparency.  If we are interested in a Weapons program, we cannot have complete transparency, 100% transparent production/elimination trends, domestic legislation, quantity of materials, independent regulatory authority or 100% nuclear material accountability.

Enough written.  More will be blathered by the media in the coming days.  But remember you read it here first! 

Time for my sleep of the innocent and the just!  May the anti-nuke shitheads stay up all night thinking of how to twist this around!  Cheerio!

nti_study_index

update:  4 days after this post, TOI published an article saying essentially the same thing, but taking an opposite slant.  If you land up there, be sure to read through the comments too.  Many of them are so lame, they’ll make you wonder whether the GoI is correct and maybe unrestricted internet access should not be given to everyone. /Just Joking/ LOL.

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