Not so, says Bhagwat. The stories Fernandes mentions appeared in The Hindustan Times and The Hindu on October 27 last year and both quote naval headquarters. There is another story that appeared even earlier, on October 3 to be precise in The Times of India, which quotes Defence Ministry sources. ``I don't understand what Mr Fernandes is talking about.''

Checkmate?

In this no-win battle of who leaked what, it would seem so. Fernandes has maintained that the October 27 stories about Naval Headquarters being concernedabout the slow pace of the ATV project (also known as the Sagarika) occurred only after Bhagwat failed to get his ``own man appointed'' and authorised a technical audit. In an interview televised on DD on Friday, he said: ``If you read those reports you will find that the source is not just the same but even most of the phrases used in that report are identical....All the information there is something that was confined to the Defence Minister's room and Dr (A P J Abdul) Kalam's room and Mr Bhagwat's mind''.

But if Bhagwat is to be believed, the ATV deal, of which he yesterday said ``I know nothing'', was not only public knowledge but also sourced to the Defence Ministry in The Times of India article, which stated the DRDO had ``reached a crucial stage'' in its ATV trials.

That's not all. In its May 25, 1998 issue, India Today wrote: ``India does not have such a (nuclear) sub. The Navy needs to accelerate this project which is based on a reverse engineering of the ex-Soviet Charlie IIdesign, christened Sagarika by the media.'' In 1994, former Atomic Energy Commission chief M R Srinivasan wrote in The Hindu: ``The existence of a nuclear submarine project is well known to observers within the country or outside.'' Not just that, Bhagwat says there are 700 pieces of information on the Sagarika on the Net and the journalists could well have got their data from there. While the number is an exaggeration, there is for instance, the unofficial Bharat Rakshak site, which says India plans to build nuclear-powered submarines for which there is an R&D project which is ``well-funded and and has facilities in New Delhi, Vizag, Hyderabad and Kalpakkam''.

The site says a naval wing of DRDO runs the organisation and since 1985 has had a Vice-Admiral in charge. ``This project has priority over the aircraft carrier project and is running to time'' it adds, before it goes on to give minute details about it being the development of a Russian design with a Rubin Indo/Russian PWR, generating about190 MW. Fernandes calls this the most vital project for the nation's defence after May last year and says he cannot even reveal which country has provided assistance, though the Bharat Rakshak site says ``given the degree of Russian technical assistance, (it) could resemble the Sverodvinsk Class nuclear powered submarine'' and the plan is ``for a class of five fitted with long range cruise missiles''.

But Fernandes says ``What others say is nothing that matters to us''. It is the official leaking of it that has left India without even a ``fig leaf'' in the international strategic community.