Thats right...But the commies and their losers (cheerleaders) have the keys to the gates of heaven! Infact, they have had the keys to heaven the last 60 years.The CPI on Saturday sought to disagree with the views of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India cannot afford to miss the "bus of nuclear renaissance" saying it was a misconception that all "gates of heaven" will open after it inks the nuclear deal with the US.
All these numbers will go out of the window when the Indian Atomic Energy Act is amended to allow private companies own nuclear power plants. Take the Ambanis with their record of project management or the Tatas. I dont think they will have any problems in setting up 10 plants with a capacity of 6000MW each over a 20 year period.Shankar wrote:There is not much double talk here since at least here they are factually right
20000MW by 2020 and 40000MW by 2035 or so will be about 7-8% of projected power generation in India in that period .This calls for setting up another 20 odd reactors by 2020 and another 25 or so by 2035 a tall order by any standard considering it takes us a decade to order a batch of much needed aircraft
so eiether way not much difference is likely to indian power scene and so called nuclear renaissance is just a gallery talk nothing more
ldev wrote:All these numbers will go out of the window when the Indian Atomic Energy Act is amended to allow private companies own nuclear power plants. Take the Ambanis with their record of project management or the Tatas. I dont think they will have any problems in setting up 10 plants with a capacity of 6000MW each over a 20 year period.Shankar wrote:There is not much double talk here since at least here they are factually right
20000MW by 2020 and 40000MW by 2035 or so will be about 7-8% of projected power generation in India in that period .This calls for setting up another 20 odd reactors by 2020 and another 25 or so by 2035 a tall order by any standard considering it takes us a decade to order a batch of much needed aircraft
so eiether way not much difference is likely to indian power scene and so called nuclear renaissance is just a gallery talk nothing more
Remember Kokatta. I remember my first visit there in April 1984, the taxi ride in a yellow Ambassador taxi from Dum Dum airport to the Camac Street/Shakespeare Sarani area in the middle of a scorching humidity filled afternoon, my white shirt had black color sticking to it from the black rexin of the taxi seat, drenched in sweat, the deafening noise, diesel fumes and smoke from dozens of generators powering elevators and essential lights in the buildings in the area because of no power for 4-6 hours at a time, to come back for an hour or so and then back to power cuts again for a few more hours.
That was the Hell , owned and operated by the Commies. Now what has happened since CESC has been taken over by the Goenkas. Havent been to Kolkatta in the last 10 years, but I believe power cuts are a thing of the past.
Moral of the story, is to hand over nuclear power generation to the private sector and the anaemic numbers trotted out by the planning commission for the year 2020 will be achived by 2013, the numbers for 2035 will probably be achieved by 2020 or sooner.
If EDF, the French electricity operator can within a 54 month period go from pouring first concrete for the civil engineering work to commercial power flowing into the French electricity grid for a 1650MW reactor, I see no reason why somebody like the Ambanis will take longer. Maybe they might do it in a shorter time frame.
How interested is the Private sector, even after GOI passes the necessary laws. Going by what i've seen they are not showing much interest, except for vague statements from USIBC meetings+DDM. There were no hints from Ratan Tata either in the last interview he gave to IBN, one could say its too premature.mdhoat wrote:Privatization of the civil nuclear power generation industry should be done as soon as the deal is finalized. But first GOI has to chalks out a fool proof master plan for ensuring sensitive nuclear technology don't fall in any untrusted hands. With the onrush of the likes of Reliance, Tata and L&T, I don't see any reason why India cannot reproduce the same results as France i.e. generating 76% of her future power needs from nuclear plants.
Swapan Dasgupta
As the Middle Kingdom celebrates a remarkable foreign policy triumph achieved entirely by leveraging its hold on India's internal affairs, we should be asking one fundamental question: Who governs India? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat?
It's always hazardous to prophesise the course of Indian politics but the exultant body language of Messrs Karat, Yechuri and Bardhan last Thursday suggested that the Communists knew they had won their most famous victory since Non-Alignment mortgaged Indian foreign policy to the Soviet Union.
The scale of the Communist victory should not be minimised. First, regardless of all the brave talk of international diplomacy resuming in November, it is safe to surmise that time-servers in the Congress don't want the shadow of a snap poll looming over the UPA Government for the remainder of its tenure. They will ensure that the nuclear issue is not resurrected as long as the Communist threat persists. As far as they are concerned, the grandstanding is not worth jeopardising the remaining months in power at the Centre.
The Prime Minister's spin doctors have argued that a temporary postponement does not materially affect the negotiations at IAEA and with the NSG, but this is an optimism aimed purely at salvaging the week's headlines. Manmohan's pathetic isolation within his own party will become obvious regardless of Congress' acknowledgment of the merits of the nuke deal.
Second, the Congress will be naïve in believing that appeasement of the Left has secured peace and that subsequently good-cop Yechury will prevail over bad-cop Karat. Adept at boxing above its class, the August crisis has demonstrated to the Communists that it is possible to win the ideological game without spilling blood. It is now certain that the Left will now enlarge the battlelines to other spheres, viz economics, education and social policy. Incredible India should be ready to confront its most serious internal challenge.
Third, in taking on the threat of the Prime Minister to withdraw and be damned, the Left has shown that it is the more resolute player. Manmohan has not merely blinked, he has been forced to eat humble pie. Already regarded as weak, his belated attempt to come across as a decisive leader has come a cropper. Since failure is never a collective responsibility, the Prime Minister has cleared many obstacles in the path of his exit route. He looks set to go down in history as the leader who walked on snow and left no footprints.
Finally, the Left has not merely won a famous battle against "US imperialism", it has taken a giant leap towards shedding a baggage that it has been forced to carry for decades: The taint of being at odds with Indian nationalism and nationhood. This is a charge that has dogged the Communist parties right from their inception. Exorcising the movement of charges of extra-territoriality is, under the circumstances, a stupendous gain.
Curiously, the CPI(M) didn't have to lift a little finger to show that it is leading the charge to uphold Indian sovereignty against foreign encroachments. Its work was done by those who nominally sit in the Opposition benches in Parliament. The BJP's impression of reaffirming a me-too Leftism -- driven, it would seem, by the need to proclaim the infallibility of its spokesmen -- has unwittingly served as the most glowing testimonial to Communist nationalism.
The debate over the Indo-US nuclear agreement is not going to dominate the political discourse at the grassroots either now or in the future. The next General Election, whenever it is held, will be fought on bread and butter issues. However, the long-term effects of a thwarted agreement will haunt India. Future historians may come to view August 2007 as the moment the political class stalled India's leap into the big league. We may still get there but who will compensate for the lost time?
Still, magnanimity demands we shouldn't begrudge the victory celebrations in our eastern and western neighbourhood. They have shown that containing India is a remarkably low-cost option.
New Delhi, July 28, IRNA
India-US-Nuke-Scientists
The top nuclear scientists of India opposed the US law for implementing the nuclear deal between the two countries.
There is great risk of our nuclear programmes being driven by external forces'
June 01, 2007
While Indian and American diplomats speak with growing optimism about finalising the India-US civilian nuclear agreement, the Indian scientific community maintains that the deal will be detrimental to India's indigenous nuclear programme.
Right from when the deal was in its nascent stages, the most vociferous opposition has come from the Indian scientific community. Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has tried to allay their fears time and again, the scientists are convinced that the nuclear treaty will do more harm than good to India's ambitious nuclear programme.
Dr A N Prasad, a former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, articulates the anguish of the scientific community in an interview with Managing Editor Sheela Bhatt.
With the 123 Agreement 'almost done', what are your major apprehensions?
The Hyde Act is a legal document based on which the US can negotiate the 123 bilateral agreement (An agreement for cooperation as a prerequisite for nuclear deals between the US and any other nation) with India. However, the Act has several sections which are not in conformity with the letter and spirit of the understanding reached by the US president [George W Bush] and the Indian prime minister (Manmohan Singh) as spelt out in their joint statements issued in July 2005 and March 2006.
This is in spite of President Bush's repeated assurances that there will not be any shifting of goal posts and India raising the issues of concern during the negotiations.
If one reads the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement and the Hyde Act together, it is clear that the bilateral agreement that the US has in mind is all about 'capping'; it is an attempt to roll back our strategic nuclear programme, and make India commit to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the back door, and place road blocks on our fast reactor programme.
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Explained: Why Nicholas Burns is in Delhi
Further, it denies India the right to reprocess -- in spite of 40 years of experience in this field. It denies full civil nuclear cooperation, contrary to the original understanding by excluding important and major portions of the nuclear cycle, such as uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing and heavy water.
Thereby, the US is, in essence, continuing the technology and supply denials; it is continuing the restrictions and embargoes as before.
The US is refusing to give assurances of uranium supply. This is bound to make India look for constant supplies depending on the US' certification of India's good behaviour in terms of Washington's standards and liking, and also keep all our civil nuclear facilities and materials under safeguards in perpetuity, irrespective of the fate of the cooperation agreement.
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We are 90 per cent there, says Burns
The list is endless. The deal is more for promoting US business interests. In this light, the biggest apprehension is, notwithstanding the assurances of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Parliament and the group of senior scientists in August 2006, what I apprehend is that India may be pressured into signing the 123 Agreement.
This can be done by fixing the language in such a way that the contentious issues are left vague and to be dealt with as they develop in future.
If this happens, we would be taking a suicidal step, since while the administrations in the two countries could always change with time, the Hyde Act will be hanging like a Damocles' sword over India's neck.
We should not be caught on the fudging of the intent of provisions in the Hyde Act as 'binding', 'non-binding', etc.
Don't you agree that all the international deals are basically on a principle of give some and take some? Compromises have to be made, and that's what, after all, negotiations are about. According to you, what can India afford to give for the sake of getting the fuel and for ending India's nuclear isolation?
Of course, all deals involve give and take. If one looks at the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement where it all began, there are a number of things India is required to comply in return for the US accepting India as a responsible partner with good credentials; a partner which is eligible to be treated at par with other advanced countries such as the US.
This implied India becoming a global player contributing in a significant way to the development of nuclear energy globally with all its experience, which has been built meticulously over a period of more than five decades, covering a very wide spectrum of activities that many of the so-called developed countries cannot boast of.
Against this expectation, the agreement is being steered into the direction of India becoming a country perpetually dependent on restricted supplies from outside with hardly any independence and respect left.
There is a starting point for the deal in the joint statement: Assurances from the US president to stay the course without shifting the goal post. And then, of course, there is our prime minister's assurance to Parliament insisting that the terms of the Joint Statement and separation plan of March 2006 as spelt out by him will be adhered to.
The prime minister assured Parliament that India would be drawing its own conclusions and would be acting in its national interest.
Therefore, India should fully comply with its part of the original commitment by placing all facilities declared under the civilian category as well as materials imported under a mutually-agreed safeguards arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in perpetuity in return for the US complying with its part of the commitment, including assurances of uranium supply, and providing India with full civil nuclear cooperation by lifting all embargoes and restrictions on our right to reprocess.
The deal should not be looked at as benefiting only India. This deal is also expected to do tremendous good to the revival of the US nuclear industry, which has been dormant for nearly three decades.
India has a lot to offer to the international community in this field. It is not fair to look down upon India just because it is having a shortage of uranium, which is a passing phase but for which we need not have cared for such a deal.
Let us presume that the 123 Agreement is through but with the strings attached. What will happen next? What will India's serving scientists do? In your opinion, how will the Department of Atomic Energy react?
There is no question of serving scientists going on strike over the deal! Scientists will continue to contribute, though with less motivation, silently suffering the effects of bartering away the freedom of action, as all programmes will come under scrutiny directly or indirectly by the US as well as IAEA.
The scientists will lose quite a bit of their pride of achievement, as intrusiveness picks up in some form or other.
The momentum for indigenous development could slow down. This is not the way to achieve long term energy security -- by perpetually becoming dependent on external supplies of uranium at the whims and fancies of the supplier countries.
In spite of so many serious implications of the 123 Agreement and the Hyde Act, why has not a single serving scientist -- or any of those scientists who are part of the negotiating teams -- spoken openly against the deal? How come only retired scientists are talking against the deal?
It is a fallacy to say that because the serving scientists are quiet, they are for the deal as it is emerging.
The majority of them, in private conversations, are unhappy with the way the deal is taking shape.
Even after striking the deal, if there is no full civilian nuclear cooperation with continuing embargoes as before in areas that matter -- such as no right to use the technology or indigenously-developed technology like reprocessing and no unrestricted access to uranium -- then, what have we gained in real terms? Just a few reactors!
And, that too without the guarantee of fuel supplies over their lifetime, and constantly living with a fear of shutting them down at great economic penalty if the Hyde Act is strictly forced on us at any time.
These are the questions being asked by the scientists, though not in public. On the other hand, it is a sad thing that many in the scientific community, as well as the business community, are kept in the dark about the intricacies of the Hyde Act and the risks involved in enforcing it.
Regarding why retired scientists are more vocal, serving scientists by and large are not used to air their views publicly as they are bound by the oath of secrecy and there is a lack of clarity of the dividing line.
The retired scientists who are speaking on this deal have made pioneering contributions in different fields and they fully understand what they are talking. They don't have any axe to grind. Their main interest is to preserve the national interest, independence and long term energy security. They have no vested interests. They don't have to stick to the chair. They know what Indian scientists are capable of, and how to achieve the goals without sacrificing pride and respect.
Isn't it true that India urgently needs fuel? And, to get fuel, don't we need to compromise somewhere? What are the best terms to get the fuel?
India needs uranium to increase power production in the near and perhaps medium term but not at the cost of its long-term interests.
If the deal is not equitable, and if all our concerns are not suitably addressed in specific language without ambiguity in the 123 Agreement, there is a great risk of our nuclear programmes being driven by external forces without India retaining absolute control.
Of the proposed compromises that are being talked about, which are the ones you find unacceptable?
The right of testing in the highly volatile terrorist environment in which we live; the right to reprocess; unrestricted uranium supplies; full civil nuclear cooperation without exceptions of certain parts of the fuel cycle; lifting of embargoes on civil nuclear activity; and safeguards in perpetuity to be made contingent on continuing bilateral cooperation so as to avoid any Tarapur-like situation -- these are some of the most crucial issues that should not be compromised in any eventuality.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jun/01inter.htm
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Leadi ... l_999.htmlLeading Indian Scientists Set To Sink US-India Nuclear Deal
File photo: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with US President George W. Bush. Photo courtesy of AFP.
by Martin Walker
UPI Editor Emeritus
Paris (UPI) Aug 17, 2006
The long-simmering revolt by India's top nuclear scientists against the controversial nuclear deal with the United States now threatens to sink the landmark agreement signed last year between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The real question is whether it will also sink the emerging strategic alliance between the United States and India -- intended by both countries to be a keystone of Asia's security architecture in the coming century.
The revolt by the scientists has been simmering for months. They never liked the deal, reckoning that India was selling itself and its nuclear capabilities too cheaply, and putting too high a price on the return to nuclear respectability that the deal embodies.
India, which has never signed the non-proliferation treaty, has been a nuclear pariah, excluded from the usual technical cooperation between the nuclear powers in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and thus also from access to key supplies like enriched uranium.
In return for bringing India back into the nuclear club, the United States obtained a number of important concessions. India agreed to open most (14 out of 22) of its reactors and nuclear research labs to international inspection and to abide by the terms of the U.S. deal "in perpetuity."
India's top nuclear scientists, known as the G8, have now publicly declared: "We find that the Indo-U.S. deal, in the form approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, infringes on our independence for carrying out indigenous research and development in nuclear science & technology.
"Our R&D should not be hampered by external supervision or control, or by the need to satisfy any international body. Research and technology development are the sovereign rights of any nation. This is especially true when they concern strategic national defense and energy self-sufficiency."
This statement by the scientists has provided cover for the political opponents of the deal to rally against it. The Communist Party allies of Prime Minister Singh's government, guided as much by anti-Americanism as by nuclear concerns, are to the fore, but Congress party leader Sonya Gandhi is now also wavering, and the BJP opposition party have seen a chance to hand the Singh government a stinging defeat.
The opposition to the deal has been made easier by the way in which the U.S. Congress tinkered with the initial terms of the deal as the price of their own support. They did so in response to strong pressure from the domestic and international lobbies, who argue (with some justice) that the deal drives a coach and horses through the terms of the NPT and sets a dangerous precedent -- just as the world is trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The scientists have further support inside India's national security community. India inhabits a dangerous neighborhood, with Russia and China and Pakistan all nuclear powers and Iran close to joining them. A lot of generals, diplomats, intelligence officials and senior advisers warn that the deal could inhibit India's freedom of strategic action.
A new memorandum being circulated among Indian nuclear scientists, claiming to rebut the government's defense of the deal, and obtained by United Press International, says: "Following the passage of the Bill through the two Houses of Representatives, in the event of a nuclear test carried out by India which has not been "allowed" by the U.S., the president will seek to prevent the transfer of technology or materials from other governments participating in the NSG or from any other source.
India could in effect be denied fuel from any country if the U.S. withdrew. Worse still, our bureaucrats seem to have forgotten that in-perpetuity agreements without an exit clause also invite long term sanctions and invite worse forms of 'nuclear apartheid' than currently exist as a result of being outside the NPT fence."
The Indian scientists are trying to protect the crown jewels of India's nuclear program; its own design of new fast-breeder reactors and its pioneering use of thorium (of which India has a large share of the world's reserves) as a nuclear fuel. And they claim that the new terms to the deal inserted by U.S. Congress leaves these technologies open to inspectors, both American and international, through the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"It has now emerged that not only will IAEA safeguards apply, but Indian entities will attract separate monitoring by three independent U.S. agencies," says the new memo from the scientists. "Such a situation is obviously completely unacceptable," they add.
Will this unholy alliance between nuclear scientists, anti-American leftists and nationalist security officials be enough to stop the deal? Probably not, although it will certainly delay and complicate it. Prime Minister Singh has negotiated his way around similar opposition in the past, and even the BJP opposition party agrees with the basic Singh strategy that India should cement its strategic alliance with the United States.
The bottom line for India is that the country fears being left standing dangerously alone and vulnerable on a railway line, with two trains rushing upon it from different directions. One train is the rise of China and the other is Islamic extremism, and India justifiably fears being run over by each of them simultaneously.
That is why both the last BJP government and the current Congress-led coalition have sought to end fifty years of Indian neutrality and forge a strategic relationship with the United States. That decision has been made long since. The question now is the price India is prepared to pay to secure it, and how far the United States will go to meet the Indian concerns, while crafting a deal that can get the support of the other nuclear powers in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group.
Source: United Press International
http://www.ieer.org/latest/indiairan.htmlou and your organisation have done extensive technical research on nuclear energy and civilian nuclear reactors. What is your take on the US-India civilian nuclear agreement?
First of all, it is not as yet an agreement, since there will be many obstacles in the US Congress as you know. Secondly, even if it is approved by Congress, it is not going to make a material difference to India's electricity scene.
If you look at India's electricity goals, which is 20,000 megawatts by 2020, the whole of the nuclear energy sector will at best contribute 10 to 12 percent of the total requirement even if everything goes as planned.
For this, India seems to be giving up, or at least jeopardising, a much larger and more sure source of energy, one that could provide electricity more competitively than nuclear, which is natural gas from Iran. So it (the US-India nuclear deal) does not look like a very good deal, even just on economic terms, never mind the other political or strategic considerations.
You said nuclear energy will by 2020 fill maybe about 12 percent of India's energy needs. Currently, the nuclear component contributes three percent.
It is about three percent now, (but) in fairness, in the first few decades, India's nuclear energy sector had many serious problems leading to chronic underperformance and high cost. In the last few years, the performance of the nuclear energy sector has considerably improved. But it still remains -- for the effort, economic as well as political that has been put into it -- a very low figure. The damage from under-performing nuclear plants in the electricity sector has not been properly assessed in India.
Can you give me concrete examples of under-performing nuclear power plants?
For example, the Rajasthan nuclear power plants, which were chronically under-performing in the 1980s and 1990s, were in the context of the electricity sector overall, quite weak. And so when you have important power plants that go down or offline most of the time or much of the time, what happens is that it has a disproportionate impact on industry.
It's not like a light going off in the house when the electricity goes out, and when it comes back on the light just comes on. These plants have to be started up very carefully, and with a certain procedure that is very costly and lengthy. So the impact of an under-performing and unreliable nuclear energy sector on Indian industry has been very significant.
The most important thing in the electricity sector in India is not the cost of electricity -- it's the unreliability of electricity. And, the fact that power is unreliable in India is one of the reasons that China gets a lot more investment despite higher costs. If you look at where corporations invest abroad, they don't invest in the cheapest labour places or even necessarily in places where they have more skilled labor, they invest in places where they can surely perform their jobs.
That is why Indian software is not a very big deal -- they can invest there because the performance of the software sector does not depend that much on large scale electricity supply. You can have emergency generators; it's not costly to do that. But the performance of a heavy industrial sector does depend on large scale supply of electricity. So it's very damaging to have the kind of lackadaisical approach to electricity that we have in India.
But isn't this an argument that the Indian government itself is making, that it has to get the power sector going if the economic growth rates are to be maintained? And that in order to do that, addressing the acute energy needs is imperative and one way of doing it is to generate nuclear energy?
The power sector is much more than a set of generating plants. You have to look at the whole sector. The sector has four different pieces in it. It has a generating side of course, without which there is nothing -- you have to have generation. But it doesn't have to be all centralised generation.
Some of it can be medium-scale and some of it can be small-scale, and it has to be connected together in a sensible way. The second thing is the transmission infrastructure.
The third thing is the distribution infrastructure, and the fourth thing is the consuming equipment -- and they are all integral to the power sector.
I'll give you an example. I was part of the US Presidential Energy Mission to India in 1994, as an adviser, because I know the Indian energy sector as well as the US energy sector. I had no business interests. I was just invited, and I saw the Enron project as a looming disaster even at the time. But of course, who was listening?
I visited power plants of the National Thermo Power Corporation of India at the time and was quite impressed by how well it was run, except one thing -- and it was not a problem in the power plant. It was a problem in the power sector. I noticed that something called the power factor was very low, which means that you are not using your generating capacity very well.
You get a low power factor if your transmission and distribution infrastructure is weak and more importantly, if your consuming equipment is of poor quality, specially your fluorescent lamps and your electricity motors.
So I pointed out that improving power can be done relatively cheaply and easily, and instead of rushing to import more generation at very high prices from contractors like Enron, why not first improve the power factor and increase India's effective generating capacity by 5 percent -- for a couple of hundred dollars a kilowatt, instead of a couple of thousand dollars a kilowatt, which is what nuclear energy will cost. But no one was interested.
It's much more sexy and attractive to invite foreigners to build power plants than it is to do it with domestic resources that are easily available within India's own infrastructure. By the way, I also found that the National Thermo Power Corporation was doing a great job, and I did not see why India necessarily needed to import so much equipment when there is so much domestic industrial capacity -- Bharat Heavy Electricals -- and the capacity to build power plants in the National Thermo Power Corporation.
I was very impressed with the laboratory as well as the industrial infrastructure in India, but it is not used well.
So what are you suggesting in lieu of nuclear reactors?
If there were standards for electric motors in terms of their performance, if there were standards for fluorescent lamp ballasts -- if we attended to the power factor, then we would be in a better position. The other thing is, we have large transmission and distribution losses. Some of it is theft, but I think less of it is theft -- theft has also become a convenient excuse for bureaucrats. I believe a lot of it is the poor infrastructure.
Because of unreliable electricity, a lot of people buy their own generator sets. This is very, very wasteful of capital. The local generation should be tied up to the grid and if that is done, our transmission and distribution losses would go down quite a bit. So India must adopt a grid approach, and Western countries will move there eventually.
It is very costly to do it here because the infrastructure is so big here. So instead of importing larger and larger power plants -- nuclear power plants, which are the largest of all power plants, which puts a strain on the transmission infrastructure -- India would do well to have 100 and 200 megawatt natural gas-fired power plants which would strengthen the infrastructure and reliability, apart from cost considerations.
So I don't believe the power sector has been well thought through. There is an ideological commitment to nuclear energy and this is an expression of ideology, not an expression of power sector interests.
Are you totally against nuclear energy and India's efforts to enhance its output in cooperation with the US?
I believe you have to evaluate every technology on what it is going to give you. There is a case to be made for nuclear energy in large countries like the US or India or any other large country. In small countries, there is not so strong a case -- nuclear power plants are just too big.
But you must ask yourself why you want a particular type of power plant and where it fits into your infrastructure.
I believe in a situation like India's, there are a number of disadvantages. I don't like nuclear energy from a number of difference points of view. The first is that it is relatively high cost. I would like it because it has zero greenhouse emissions at first approximation, and that's a very big advantage of nuclear energy.
But for a country like India, there are a number of disadvantages even if you disregard proliferation. The most important consideration is reliability.
If you build a 100 megawatt power plant and have too many of them, when one of them goes offline, the reliability problems ripple through the infrastructure and your power sector will tend to go down, your electricity supply will tend to go down more often. This is the calculation that is not being done in India.
Reliability is not in the centre of Indian power centre considerations, and surprisingly so, because reliability is the number one problem in India.
You spoke about the quest for nuclear energy in India being part of an ideological drive. Is it, in your opinion, an ideological drive that spans the whole gamut of the overall US-India strategic partnership?
I don't believe it is ideological in terms of the US-India relationship, because that is what India wanted to do -- cement the US-India relationship, and it seems to have given up quite a lot in the process. I think India wanted two things from the US -- nuclear power and support for a UN Security Council seat. I don't think the US is ever going to support another Security Council member with a veto.
The nuclear energy deal itself is going to be very tough and many of India's friends in the US Congress are asking questions.
The ideological commitment to nuclear energy goes back to a different era. It goes back to two things -- one of which was a kind of ideological disease that was pretty much global, centred in the United States and the Soviet Union, which is that nuclear energy is going to be a magical energy source that is going to solve all of mankind's problems.
So the ideological commitment, vis-Ã -vis India, goes back to the 1940s with Homi Bhabha and (Jawaharlal) Nehru who wanted India to be among the leaders in industry, in science, technology and they, like in many developing countries, many newly independent countries, felt that the prestige associated with the symbols of modernity were going to put countries on the map.
India, of course, had global ambitions in this regard and there was no technology that was more a symbol of modernity than nuclear energy.
So there has been a kind of glamour about being like the Americans and the British, and I understand that. But this idea of technological imitation as a road to greatness… I believe it is the root of this ideological problem. It is actually leading India down the wrong road and compromising India's future as an industrial power.
You have said that even if the agreement is ratified by Congress, nuclear power will provide only a tiny fraction of India's energy requirements. You've also made the argument that in the final analysis, India would be giving up so much. What would India be giving up?
India has jeopardised its relationship with Iran. And not only that -- you know, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has been making great efforts, and I believe rightly so, throughout the West Asian and Central Asian region for India to make agreements on the energy questions, that will ensure long-term oil and gas supplies to India.
I believe the Iranian natural gas deal -- both the liquefied natural gas and the pipeline -- are linchpins of this whole strategy, partly for geographical reasons and partly for strategic and economic reasons, because they are the closest and cheapest deals. Iran, I believe, has the second largest natural gas reserves in the world. Natural gas, in my opinion, should be a priority fuel for two things -- for electricity generation and for transportation.
As we know, the cities of Mumbai and Delhi have been transformed in terms of pollution by the use of natural gas in buses, taxis and so on. And, beyond that, I believe if India took some leadership in the transportation area, instead of thinking that nuclear energy is going to give it technological leadership, India could truly become a technological leader in the world, say in various approaches to magnetic levitated trains, advanced hybrid car technology that is powered by natural gas, things like that.
I believe India could have a transportation sector that would be much more economical of oil and gas if it went to hybrid natural gas powered vehicles. For this as well as for the electrical sector, Iranian gas supplies would create a potential much larger than 20,000 megawatts of electricity India requires, not to talk of the 5,000 to 7,000 megawatts the Indian government may get from the United States. So the natural gas quantities available from Iran are much, much larger in terms of energy supplies than nuclear power would be from the United States.
So your argument is jeopardising this relationship with Iran for the sake of US nuclear power reactors is too great a sacrifice?
There is also a strategic consideration that India should have learnt from the Tarapur experience, which is that Tarapur was in the context of another period in which India and the United States were supposedly sweethearts, and fuel was promised for this.
Then India did something that the United States did not like, though we know that what India did in 1974 was triggered by something the US did -- the US sent the aircraft carrier Enterprise, armed with nuclear weapons, to the Indian Ocean during the India-Pakistan war in 1971 and threatened India.
I believe this was one of the factors that led to the Indian nuclear test (in 1974). But in Washington, not only did it never enter the debate, many of the leaders in the nonproliferation community are not even conscious of the fact that India's decision to go nuclear was in good part prompted by a US nuclear threat to India. They have never taken any responsibility for it, and they have never, therefore, taken any responsibility for cutting off the fuel supply to Tarapur.
It is said there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests, and this certainly applies to all of the great powers. The Indian leadership is now behaving as if this sort of cozy sweetheart relationship is going to go on forever and that the Americans are going to be in some way a reliable partner, more reliable than the Iranians.
I would say if you strip away all of the ideological considerations and ask yourself who has a greater interest in making sure that India gets what it wants, I believe today, among all of the actors, there is no party with a greater interest in making sure that India gets what it wants than Iran.
The plans that Mr Aiyar has been putting into place are very visionary and they are being, I would say, grievously compromised by things like the IAEA vote. Specifically, if India votes with the United States to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, I believe it will kill the India-Iran deal.
Leave the politics aside for now; in tangible terms, how does the supply of natural gas from Iran compare with nuclear energy generated in India with the help of US-supplied nuclear reactors?
Currently, the spot market prices for natural gas are $13 to $14 per million BTU (British Thermal Unit). Iranian gas by pipeline via Pakistan would be delivered to India in the vicinity of $3.5 to $4 per million BTU. This is not only much less than world prices, but at that price you can generate electricity more cheaply and that will create a much more reliable power sector in India than through nuclear power plants.
It is not that all the natural gas should be used for electricity, but just making a comparison on that basis alone -- leaving aside the consideration that it would promote peace with Pakistan - the Iran deal could be the centrepiece of a very large project that I believe India needs to lead in, which is the economic integration of West, Central and South Asia.
Could you speak about the safety factor of nuclear reactors? Do you believe India has taken the required protections against the possibility of nuclear accidents and disasters, in light of investigative reports of problems at some of India's nuclear plants?
Those kinds of investigative reports do make one very uneasy. I have not independently investigated them, but I do believe that many of these reports should be given more credence from official authorities than they have been. Fortunately, India has not had a major accident, even on the scale of Three Mile Island which was much, much less than say Chernobyl.
I can say from the US experience that the safety in the US nuclear sector has depended very critically on how open it is to outside intervenors -- that is, in the 1960s, the power plants that were being built here were not very safe. Many did not have secondary containment, their emergency core cooling systems were not very well designed.
Three Mile Island could have been a much worse disaster had there not been whistle-blowers and hearings in which the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent non-profit, was very critical of how the emergency core cooling systems were designed. As a result of that, the whole thing was revamped
There has been some openness in the Indian nuclear energy sector in the last few years. They do publish some environmental information prior to projects. But I have been dismayed by three things.
First of all, the amount of information is sorely deficient. Much more details need to be available to the public. The idea that the public cannot discuss atomic energy issues, which is in the Indian laws, is obsolete and detrimental to safety. It's not like publishing bomb designs, which is proper to be kept secret.
The second thing is, this kind of information should be thoroughly integrated into the environmental assessments. I looked at the environmental assessment of the Breeder Reactor Project, which is being built at Kalpakkam, and I found it was very thin.
And in the third sector, the Indians are learning an unfortunate lesson from the Americans, in that we have an environmental impact process here, but for the most part it has been perverted over the years -- the establishment decides what it wants to do and the environmental impact statement becomes pro forma.
However in the US system, there is some check on that, because the public can take the government to court. I believe the environmental impact process in India should be deepened with a much greater commitment to taking independent steps.
India has a great tap of technical and engineering and scientific expertise. It should take advantage of that and encourage independent thought to make whatever is done -- whether it is in coal or gas or oil or nuclear -- as safe as it can possibly be made.
There is always a resource constraint, but within those constraints, it has to be open to independent criticism. We (the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research) produce technical studies all the time, and we have a very good record because we send our reports for review to people we know may not agree with our conclusions and then we take their criticisms very seriously.
This is what is needed in the Indian energy sector as a whole, not just in the nuclear sector. India has, for many decades, paid an extremely heavy price for a wrong-headed development of the power sector that is focused on more centralised generation to the exclusion of the other two pieces -- strong emphasis on the consumption and distribution side. Not that we don't need more centralisation -- we need large-scale power plants in India.
I am not saying small is beautiful. (But) India should have a mix of large, medium and small plants that are integrated. Indian electricity planning overall, I believe, has been far too focused on large-scale generation and on imported generation, neither of which I believe are strategically very good as the basis for planning.
With regard to the requirement by the US that India separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities in a credible manner and put it under international safeguards, do you think this is viable?
I believe for the Indians to have submitted to this with the United States at this time is not very strategically or politically appropriate, specially if India aims to continue as a leader in the non-aligned world. It would be throwing away that leadership for something I don't believe it's going to get from the United States.
In recent years, the United States has given up its own leadership in regard to civilian facilities and nuclear weapons materials because it is currently making Tritium for its nuclear weapons program in civilian reactors of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Moreover, the United States is not itself open to IAEA inspections.
India should exercise its leadership to make the nuclear playing field level for everybody. I am not particularly for nuclear development in Iran or the US or anyplace else because of all the reasons I've told you. However, I believe it is very corrosive for India to be promoting what it not so long ago called nuclear apartheid.
I was very saddened to read a comment from some official, a year or two ago, that Indians no longer talk about nuclear apartheid because India is now part of the club. This is a very, very corrosive idea.
India should talk about nuclear apartheid with the idea of getting rid of it, and leading the way in its best traditions; India should be pressuring the nuclear weapons states to get rid of the bombs. Unfortunately, the present direction of leadership in this arena, I believe, is going to be very detrimental for the country.
What India should do is publish a strict set of criteria, which will make the nuclear energy field in regard to proliferation equal throughout the world. If there are going to be inspections, then let them be universal. If there are going to be Additional Protocols of the IAEA inspections, let them also be universal.
This article originally appeared on rediff.com. Courtesy India Abroad and rediff.
Shankar, before you get all excited, this is old news. So what's your point with this stale news? Trying to pretend people won't notice? why don't you post something from 2005 or even earlier if it conveniently supports your POV? Bloody dishonest of you.by Martin Walker
UPI Editor Emeritus
Paris (UPI) Aug 17, 2006
so it was necessary to point out that news is not just from IRNS who are anti USankar quote a news item that Indian scientists were against the nuke deal...and not-so-coincidentally, he (unintentionally) had to quote an Iranian newspaper...all we know is that Iran is against the deal if IRNA tries to spin the situation this way.
f you look at India's electricity goals, which is 20,000 megawatts by 2020, the whole of the nuclear energy sector will at best contribute 10 to 12 percent of the total requirement even if everything goes as planned.
or this, India seems to be giving up, or at least jeopardising, a much larger and more sure source of energy, one that could provide electricity more competitively than nuclear, which is natural gas from Iran. So it (the US-India nuclear deal) does not look like a very good deal, even just on economic terms, never mind the other political or strategic considerations.
why not first improve the power factor and increase India's effective generating capacity by 5 percent -- for a couple of hundred dollars a kilowatt, instead of a couple of thousand dollars a kilowatt, which is what nuclear energy will cost. But no one was interested.
ndia has jeopardised its relationship with Iran. And not only that -- you know, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has been making great efforts, and I believe rightly so, throughout the West Asian and Central Asian region for India to make agreements on the energy questions, that will ensure long-term oil and gas supplies to India.
Do you imagine you are telling us anything we didn't know already? This stuff (American duplicity during the Cold War) is not new, it has been widely discussed on this forum thousands of times. How does it discredit the US-India 123 agreement of today?sraj wrote:Extracted from Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, to be published by Atlantic Books on September 13
ing about how America always cheats on the treaties it signs. What makes these people think America (or any other country, for that matter) won't cheat on this hypothetical "ironcald guarantee" treaty?Perhaps you did not notice that the IRNA article deliberately left out the year, 2006. The article just says "July 28".so it was necessary to point out that news is not just from IRNS who are anti US
They are "stale" precisely because many rounds of negotiations were conducted after that (after which the scientists came up with more ideas such as the reprocessing facility). Why are you pretending that such developments did not take place in the past year?Now what is stale about the concerns raised -they are as valid today as when mentioned like
The scientists could have stated what they did in 2006 becaise that was their view then. Shri Anil Kakodkar has stated that he has changed his view because his concerns were addressed. Why is your counterclaim more believable than that of AK?this is valid argument even in 2007 today 20000 MW is still an optimistic figure and still it will not be making any significant diffrence .Please explain why this logic is not valid or irrational
India has been acquiring rights in central asia and russia, so Iran is not India's only option. And Iran has not been very reliable in reneging on its contract after they signed it with us. Iran cannot expect India to support Iran violating treaties they signed up to just because they signed India up for a long-term gas contract.we still have to depend the fuel part of our energy and majot part of power part of energy on middle east for decades to come
please can we know how this shortage will be addressed by nuke agreement .You surely dont expect us to have electric powered trains and cars and trucks and furnaces by 2020 and all energised by nuke power of 20000MW
Privatization of power will lead to private billing and private distribution, which is the only way to cut down all the "state-sponsored" thievery of electricity in the form of free power from the state grid.How is nuke power solve the in efficient transmission and distribution system existing today and responsible for as much as 255 losses in some states
Let's put it this way -- as long as state electricity boards are in charge of power billing and distribution and labour unions of workers from these boards are part of the system, there will be loss. why are you pretending that the state electricity boards that have failed to show results for 50 years will do so tomorrow if India walks away from 123?-will it not be a far better solution to improve the power evacuation infrastructure with high voltage DC transmission,stopping power theft etc with the money instaed of going after fancy imported reactors .
This is utter cow dung. Mani Shakar Aiyar was moved out of the petroleum ministry to the Panchayati Raj ministry because he lost ALL the contracts he tried to get from Myanmar and else where to the Chinese.ndia has jeopardised its relationship with Iran. And not only that -- you know, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has been making great efforts, and I believe rightly so, throughout the West Asian and Central Asian region for India to make agreements on the energy questions, that will ensure long-term oil and gas supplies to India.
Our oil and gas options are not cut off --- India has been working on acquiring rights elsewhere. Why are you of the opinion that Iran is Indias's only choice? Is it India's fault that Iran is in the doghouse after making existential threats on Israel?-do you think this is not a valid logic -you think we can sustain our growth today without gas and oil -I am sorry then you totally mistaken with more than 905 energy today from coal/oil gas and 40% from oil and gas out of which we produce less than 35% our dependance on imported fuel will stay nuke deal or not
Well actually your post was addressed to (emphasis mine) "ldev, Valkan, anyone else still want to talk about the NPT obligations of the US". And since I am one of the 'anyone else', I'm saying "the NPT obligations of the US" are just so much BS. The US, or anyone else, will cheat on treaties as often as they like, if they think they can get away with it.Please re-read the opening comment addressed to ldev and Valkan in my post: my post was in the specific context of a discussion with these two posters about whether US NPT obligations required...
GoI and GOTUS have both stated clearly and repeatedly that this deal is all there is, there is no question of renegotiation. It is a "take it or leave it" thing for both GoI and the US Congress. Anyone who doesn't know this has just not been paying attention.comment: again, GoI should make the domestic political case accordingly, and they will either succeed or fail.
I'm saying people need to be honest about what it means to reject this deal. There has been lots of talk (for example, yesterday by Bardhan and certainly by some on this forum) about rejecting this deal and "renegotiaing a better deal" with the US. Rejection may happen. Renegotiation won't happen.I hope you are not suggesting that anyone who may not agree with your views in this matter should just 'shut up'.
What are the other options available to India for solving its chronic energy problems without wrecking the environment? How to obtain dual-use technology that is now denied? Or are you suggesting that there are no such problems?these are not the only two options available to India. It is not a binary 0/1 situation.
I hope you have read the Hyde act.enqyoob wrote:Nice article, pls cross-post in "Pakistani Global Terrorism" thread, but
what annual certification process for India, pls?
(3) SUBMITTAL WITH OTHER ANNUAL REPORTS.—
(A) REPORT ON PROLIFERATION PREVENTION.—Each
annual report submitted under paragraph (2) after the
initial report may be submitted together with the annual
report on proliferation prevention required under section
601(a) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 (22
U.S.C. 3281(a)).
(B) REPORT ON PROGRESS TOWARD REGIONAL NONPROLIFERATION.—
The information required to be submitted
under paragraph (2)(F) after the initial report may be
submitted together with the annual report on progress
toward regional nonproliferation required under section
620F(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C.
2376(c)).
(4) FORM.—Each report submitted under this subsection
shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may contain a
classified annex.
(2) IMPLEMENTATION AND COMPLIANCE REPORT.—Not later
than 180 days after the date on which an agreement for
cooperation with India arranged pursuant to section 123 of
the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2153) enters into
force, and annually thereafter, the President shall submit to
the appropriate congressional committees a report including—
(A) a description of any additional nuclear facilities
and nuclear materials that the Government of India has
placed or intends to place under IAEA safeguards;
(B) a comprehensive listing of—
(i) all licenses that have been approved by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Secretary of
Energy for exports and reexports to India under parts
110 and 810 of title 10, Code of Federal Regulations;
(ii) any licenses approved by the Department of
Commerce for the export or reexport to India of
commodities, related technology, and software which
are controlled for nuclear nonproliferation reasons on
the Nuclear Referral List of the Commerce Control
List maintained under part 774 of title 15, Code of
Federal Regulation, or any successor regulation;
(iii) any other United States authorizations for
the export or reexport to India of nuclear materials
and equipment; and
(iv) with respect to each such license or other
form of authorization described in clauses (i), (ii), and
(iii)—
(I) the number or other identifying information
of each license or authorization;
(II) the name or names of the authorized end
user or end users;
H. R. 5682—11
(III) the name of the site, facility, or location
in India to which the export or reexport was made;
(IV) the terms and conditions included on such
licenses and authorizations;
(V) any post-shipment verification procedures
that will be applied to such exports or reexports;
and
(VI) the term of validity of each such license
or authorization;
(C) a description of any significant nuclear commerce
between India and other countries, including any such
trade that—
(i) is not consistent with applicable guidelines or
decisions of the NSG; or
(ii) would not meet the standards applied to
exports or reexports of such material, equipment, or
technology of United States origin;
(D) either—
(i) an assessment that India is in full compliance
with the commitments and obligations contained in
the agreements and other documents referenced in
clauses (i) through (vi) of paragraph (1)(A); or
(ii) an identification and analysis of all compliance
issues arising with regard to the adherence by India
to its commitments and obligations, including—
(I) the measures the United States Government
has taken to remedy or otherwise respond
to such compliance issues;
(II) the responses of the Government of India
to such measures;
(III) the measures the United States Government
plans to take to this end in the coming
year; and
(IV) an assessment of the implications of any
continued noncompliance, including whether
nuclear commerce with India remains in the
national security interest of the United States;
(E)(i) an assessment of whether India is fully and
actively participating in United States and international
efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and
contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability
(including the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess
nuclear fuel), and the means to deliver weapons of mass
destruction, including a description of the specific measures
that India has taken in this regard; and
(ii) if India is not assessed to be fully and actively
participating in such efforts, a description of—
(I) the measures the United States Government
has taken to secure India’s full and active participation
in such efforts;
(II) the responses of the Government of India to
such measures; and
(III) the measures the United States Government
plans to take in the coming year to secure India’s
full and active participation;
H. R. 5682—12
(F) an analysis of whether United States civil nuclear
cooperation with India is in any way assisting India’s
nuclear weapons program, including through—
(i) the use of any United States equipment, technology,
or nuclear material by India in an
unsafeguarded nuclear facility or nuclear-weapons
related complex;
(ii) the replication and subsequent use of any
United States technology by India in an unsafeguarded
nuclear facility or unsafeguarded nuclear weaponsrelated
complex, or for any activity related to the
research, development, testing, or manufacture of
nuclear explosive devices; and
(iii) the provision of nuclear fuel in such a manner
as to facilitate the increased production by India of
highly enriched uranium or plutonium in
unsafeguarded nuclear facilities;
(G) a detailed description of—
(i) United States efforts to promote national or
regional progress by India and Pakistan in disclosing,
securing, limiting, and reducing their fissile material
stockpiles, including stockpiles for military purposes,
pending creation of a worldwide fissile material cutoff
regime, including the institution of a Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty;
(ii) the responses of India and Pakistan to such
efforts; and
(iii) assistance that the United States is providing,
or would be able to provide, to India and Pakistan
to promote the objectives in clause (i), consistent with
its obligations under international law and existing
agreements;
(H) an estimate of—
(i) the amount of uranium mined and milled in
India during the previous year;
(ii) the amount of such uranium that has likely
been used or allocated for the production of nuclear
explosive devices; and
(iii) the rate of production in India of—
(I) fissile material for nuclear explosive
devices; and
(II) nuclear explosive devices;
(I) an estimate of the amount of electricity India’s
nuclear reactors produced for civil purposes during the
previous year and the proportion of such production that
can be attributed to India’s declared civil reactors;
(J) an analysis as to whether imported uranium has
affected the rate of production in India of nuclear explosive
devices;
(K) a detailed description of efforts and progress made
toward the achievement of India’s—
(i) full participation in the Proliferation Security
Initiative;
(ii) formal commitment to the Statement of Interdiction
Principles of such Initiative;
(iii) public announcement of its decision to conform
its export control laws, regulations, and policies with
H. R. 5682—13
the Australia Group and with the Guidelines, Procedures,
Criteria, and Controls List of the Wassenaar
Arrangement; and
(iv) effective implementation of the decision
described in clause (iii); and
(L) the disposal during the previous year of spent
nuclear fuel from India’s civilian nuclear program, and
any plans or activities relating to future disposal of such
spent nuclear fuel.
That comment is such a big balooney. Who are you basing this on? MMS!Mohan Raju wrote:And one last point: this deal is all there is on offer. It is this deal or nothing. There is no question of rejecting this deal and "renegotiating with the US for a better deal". No one is going to renegotiate anything. If you are talking about "a better deal" you are talking about something that doesn't exist, in which case you should be in the Philosophy Dept of some university, where you can spend decades and gain much prestige by discussing non-existent things.
My post was addressed toMohan Raju wrote:sraj:
Well actually your post was addressed to (emphasis mine) "ldev, Valkan, anyone else still want to talk about the NPT obligations of the US"as the reason for the annual certification process for India?. And since I am one of the 'anyone else', I'm saying "the NPT obligations of the US" are just so much BS. The US, or anyone else, will cheat on treaties as often as they like, if they think they can get away with it.Please re-read the opening comment addressed to ldev and Valkan in my post: my post was in the specific context of a discussion with these two posters about whether US NPT obligations required...
Thank you for you answer. In my post, I just wished to establish that, contrary to ldev's and Valkan's fervent assertions, the argument that US NPT obligations required it to put in various conditions in the Hyde Act (including annual certification) was "just so much BS" (as you put it)."ldev, Valkan, anyone else still want to talk about the NPT obligations of the US as the reason for the annual certification process for India?
Why did the PM have to say first "It's non-negotiable, take it or leave it " a good one ~week before Nicholas Burns spelt out US Gov's postion.Mohan Raju wrote:GoI and GOTUS have both stated clearly and repeatedly that this deal is all there is, there is no question of renegotiation. It is a "take it or leave it" thing for both GoI and the US Congress. Anyone who doesn't know this has just not been paying attention.
So if 123 agreement is non-negotiable, why isn't it signed yet ?N-deal: Condoleeza Rice to visit India
Indo-Asian News Service
Washington, July 25, 2007
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is expected to visit India, probably for the signing of the 123 agreement to implement the India-US nuclear deal hammered out in Washington last week.
"I expect that she will travel to India at some point. I can't tell you when. That's not been scheduled, but she looks forward to travelling to India again," state department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Tuesday in response to a question if Rice was going to India to sign the agreement
The US official declined to go beyond the joint statement issued at the end of the India-US talks in Washington last week claiming "substantial progress made on the outstanding issues in the 123 agreement" and that the issue would be "referred to the two governments for final review."
-it is irrelevant the objection was made and a turn around was made too without any change in the basic understanding that is putting 2/3 of our nuclear fissile material making capability under safeguard for perpetuityPerhaps you did not notice that the IRNA article deliberately left out the year, 2006. The article just says "July 28".
-Truth does not become stale with passage of time .What the negotiations were and what extra benifits we had out of countless rounds of negotiation is still not understood by the majority of nation as reflected in the parliamentary objections. If you say so it implies the the lected representatives do not represent our national view which in its turn mean ours is not a democracy or the head of the govt ceases to respond to the elected majority once the election is over and any bi lateral agrement can be executed even if the nation do not agree to it . This is no secret military deal -it is an out and out civilian nuclear arrangement which needed to be transparent and open from the word go and an open debate both in parliament and outside was a pre requisite to such a deal being inked.Irrespective of lefts reasons and ideology they have in inadvertently done the nation a service by bringing the debate into open .We pride ourselves as the largest democracy but in practice behave exactly the opposite .The term non -negotiable in any treaty is absurd and adds an unacceptable flavor to the whole issueThey are "stale" precisely because many rounds of negotiations were conducted after that (after which the scientists came up with more ideas such as the reprocessing facility). Why are you pretending that such developments did not take place in the past year?
-exactly sometimes we o the right thing as dictated by national interestIndia has been acquiring rights in central asia and russia, so Iran is not India's only option. And Iran has not been very reliable in reneging on its contract after they signed it with us. Iran cannot expect India to support Iran violating treaties they signed up to just because they signed India up for a long-term gas contract.
Our oil and gas options are not cut off --- India has been working on acquiring rights elsewhere. Why are you of the opinion that Iran is Indias's only choice? Is it India's fault that Iran is in the doghouse after making existential threats on Israel?
