October 16, 1979, Forty Years AgoFuel For Tarapur
The Jimmy Carter administration does not seem to have taken any firm stand yet on the pending Indian applications for fuel for Tarapur. The scenario sketched by observers is as follows: Very soon the state department will reply to the nuclear regulatory commission. In the context of the general friendliness of the US administration to India and the desire of the Carter administration to utilise the two-year grace period for diplomacy, it is almost certain that the state department will recommend further supply. What the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will do is anybody’s guess. The chances are probably slightly against continued supplies.
Cong-CPM Talks
The Congress agreed to join hands with the Marxists during the Lok Sabha poll as the latter only too readily resiled from the firm postures they had adopted earlier. This was the net outcome of the 90-minute long meeting of the leaders of the Congress, the CPM and the CPI held in New Delhi. The Congress general secretary, Yunus Saleem, emphasised that his party will continue to support the Koya Ministry in Kerala and vote for the controversial land gift bill even when they reach an understanding with the CPM for the Lok Sabha election. The question of dissolution of the Assembly was not discussed, he added.
Pak Nobel Win
The 1979 Nobel prize in physics was awarded to two Americans and a Pakistani and the chemistry prize to an American and a West German. A total of four of seven laureates selected for the three 1979 science prize are Americans, the same number as last year. The physics prize was awarded to professors Sheldon L Glashow and Steven Weinberg, both 46, of Harvard, and Abdus Salam, 53, a Pakistani physicist working in London and Trieste, Italy — for studies aimed at unlocking the mystery of forces that hold matter together. They believe their work may eventually find a single force underlying the universe.