In a pickle in Jamnagar

THE massive Reliance refinery in Jamnagar abutting the Arabian Sea from its perch in Gujarat was inaugurated in December 1999. There may be absolutely no connection between the refinery’s birthday and India’s nuclear tests of May 1998. But it’s difficult also to ignore the high stakes involved in its presence facing Pakistan, which too became a nuclear power that year. History shows a pattern of power play associated with such critical and strategic assets. It was on the eve of World War I that Churchill decided that the Royal Navy should switch to oil and away from Welsh coal to make the…