Roland,
Here's another view of Vajpayee from
https://thewire.in/politics/atal-bihari-vajpayee-obituary
Excerpts:
Before he slipped out of the public limelight almost a decade ago [following
a stroke & dementia], there were two characteristics of Vajpayee which were
unmistakable. The first, his long pauses while speaking in public, which
were essentially used to gather his thoughts, and gave a dramatic effect to
his public speeches.
His other characteristic was that he always masked his viewpoint and shifted
positions depending on situational demands. For instance, if he expressed
reservations about Advani’s Yatra in 1990, as prime minister he
contrastingly asserted in December 2000 that the agitation for the Ram
temple was a “symbol of national aspiration.”
(There is more in the above link)
ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF INDIA'S NUCLEAR TESTS:
If asked about V's achievements, devotees would no doubt point to his
go-ahead for the nuclear tests of 1998.
But doubts have been expressed about the success of India's tests. Here are
titbits I collected:
By describing the tests as a "fizzle", K Santhanam (26 Aug 09) challenged
the official views about the tests. The scientific community in India and
abroad had questioned the results of the 1998 tests within a week of their
execution. But R Chidambaram who was head of the Atomic Energy Agency (AEA)
and APJ Abdul Kalam, director general of the Defense Research and
Development Organization (DRDO), glibly asserted that the tests were
successful and "weaponization was complete".
But others like PK Iyengar, former director of the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) suggested that the device named Shakti I was a "boosted fission"
weapon, not a thermonuclear device. The Federation of American Scientists
(FAS) noted: "Based on seismic data, experts estimated that the lower yield
raised doubts about India's claim to have detonated a thermonuclear device."
In November 1998, Nucleonics Week, the international nuclear industry's
trade journal, reported that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California - an industry watchdog - had concluded that the
second stage of a two-stage Indian hydrogen bomb device failed to ignite as
planned.
In the face of the US experts' judgement, Indian spokesmen should have been
a bit more cautious in their pronouncements. But they are not
temperamentally cut out to to react calmly. Chidambaram went overboard at
the Indian Science Writers' Association in February 1999 and exulted that
the test outcome was perfect: Indian scientists had mastered the optimum
emplacement design for the nuclear device; had got specific yield
calculations and ensured zero radioactive contamination.
But scientists like A Gopalkrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy
Regulatory Board and P K Iyengar agree with Santhanam and point out that the
single thermonuclear device India tested in 1998 did not function at all as
per design and did not produce anything near the expected design yield.
There was something wrong with the design or prediction method.
Roland & others might like to comment.
Eddie
===========================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Roland Francis
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2018 9:08 PM
To: goa...@goanet.org
Subject: [Goanet] ABV and the English Language
Hi Eddie,
Vajpayee cannot be judged solely on the basis of being a long-time member or
indeed a founder of the BJP or on the basis of not being fluent in English.
Non ideologue and non orthodox that he was, his only fault would have been
by being moderate, to give his party a wider base with the population that
allowed it to evolve into the hands of men like Modi and his ilk. If he was
even slightly extremist during the sensitive 50s to 80s, his party would
have been obliterated from the scene.
Although not fluent in English, he knew and had studied the language and I
was surprised to learn from you that he orated in Hindi during his Kenya
visit. My only explanation to that would be that the Kenyans intimidated him
with their pronunciation of English and he must have thought “let’s avoid
that problem altogether”.
Roland.
