My Blogs : First Opinion ; Radiation Protection Issues ; My Voice

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

INDO - US NUCLEAR AGREEMENT

Two long years of hard negotiations and diplomacy is coming to nought if India fails to forge the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement by not taking steps to operationalize the deal. The Left parties of the coalition government are insisting on withdrawal of the Government from the deal, unexpectedly at the last minute. By doing so, the nuclear power scenario in India is going to take a beating. The country may not be able to contribute even the 2-3% of the total electricity generated. The Indian community in US seems to be very unhappy with this development. According to them, the deal is more beneficial to India than to US, which of course is debatable. It is more of a business deal for US. The deal is of billions of dollars worth to US, in terms of selling reactors, reactor components, nuclear fuel and other high tech equipments.

It is extremely difficult for India to prosper in nuclear ventures being isolated from other resourceful countries. Power from thorium fuel cycle is still a few years away. The country should go all out for mining uranium from the newly found deposits in the north eastern state of Meghalaya, to fuel its PHWRs. What about utilization of depleted uranium stock? Fissile material percentage in depleted uranium need to be compensated by addition of other fissile actinide materials.

Meanwhile, why not try to negotiate with other interested countries for similar agreement without compromising on the reprocessing rights and the right to test nuclear devises. Why US alone? There are 44 other friendly countries such as France, Russia, and Australia to negotiate in the 45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Monday, October 15, 2007

Unkept promises by the governments – the nuclear deal

It is reported that the Democratic Front coalition government (Congress and NCP) at Maharashtra State has a record of 8984 unkept promises or assurances given to the people who voted them to power on issues raised on the floor of the state legislature during the period 2005 to date. Out of the total 13,025 only 4041 assurances were implemented. There seems to be no difference between the false promises made in front of the hired crowd during election rally and the august floor of the legislature. Nobody is taking stock of the situation!

Situation seems to be no better at the national level, governed by Congress and Left Front. The much discussed Indo-US Nuclear Deal is kept on hold just because the government wants to be in power for the remaining 12 to 14 months of the term in the Office. The members of the Parliament are not in favour of early elections because they may not get elected. The top leaders make inconsistent statements. The earlier bold statements made in the so-called “national interest” suddenly seem to have forgotten and the Front is now only clinging to power. For operationalize the nuclear agreement, the necessary step of approaching the IAEA for the Safeguards Agreement is kept in the backburner. It will be a big setback to the Indian Nuclear Power Programme and the nuclear power scenario in the country.

The people of India are still guessing on whose interest the Left parties are opposing the deal, at the last moment? Definitely not in the country’s interest I suppose.