Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that the full texts of recent agreements with the United States be placed before Parliament in the winter session itself.
Referring to the finalisation of 'Major Defence Partner' designation to India days back and the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. and India earlier this year, Mr. Yechury said that Parliament has been kept in the dark.
“While the U.S. government has placed the details of ‘Major Defense Partner’ designation for approval of the U.S. Senate as part of FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), your government has not even made a statement in Parliament about such a significant deal,” Mr. Yechury said in the letter. “The country can see the U.S. side of the deal by reading the 2017 NDAA, but remains ignorant of the Indian commitment as a ‘Major Defense Partner’ of the United States.”
Claiming that by signing the pacts India is now one of the U.S.’ closest allies and partners, Mr. Yechury’s said: “I would like to draw your attention to Paragraph (E) of Sec. 1292 of 2017 NDAA, which talks of 'mechanisms to verify the security of defense articles, defense services, and related technology, such as appropriate cyber security and end user monitoring agreements' for items and technologies sold to India. Paragraph (F) thereafter states that India will align its ‘export control and procurement regimes with those of the United States’. These are significant concessions made by your government which will make Indian defence forces open to American scrutiny, and Indian defence production under the control of the United States of America.”
