A powerful Indian-American lawmaker on Tueday blasted The New York Times for terming India as a "longtime nuclear scofflaw".
In an editorial on the eve of the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India on July 17, NYT had termed New Delhi as a "longtime nuclear scofflaw" and
held India responsible on Kashmir, relations with Pakistan and also partly blamed it for the nuclear weapons programme of Iran.
Kumar Barve, the Majority Leader in Maryland House of Delegates, said, "to me the most troubling aspect of the
article was not to be found in the blatant and unprofessional factual errors or omissions. It was the tone. How haughty, how condescending, how arrogant and patronizing. How like the British Raj."
"The Times' editorial contains a factual error in its very first sentence when it describes the Republic of India as
a "longtime nuclear scofflaw".
"Actually, India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because it felt it discriminated against third-world counties," Barve wrote in an email to his constituents.
"The Times is free to disagree with this policy, but it ought to at least agree that one can only be a scofflaw if a law, or in this case a treaty agreement is violated. India has done nothing of the sort," Barve said in a rare email on
international matters.