India nuclear news and discussion

[harbans]

Rajesh ji in your latest post on the principle stand thing you have put some points that i will think over. However why do you consider i am being an optimist as far as figures with trade to US and GDP go? One just has to look at India's FDI 3 years back, India's trade with US 5 years back and today, India's GDP 10 years back and today.

Arun Ji, you have made an excellent addition to Tibet and Narayanan ji has brilliantly once again pointed to Chinese Nukes=Paki nukes (as far as India is concerned tack) and thus CTBT is a 4 letter word we sign only when Chinese nukes are taken care off and obviously add Tibet to the list. However that does'nt take the thrust of the framework and examples of strategic posturing as recommended with clarity by Rajesh ji.

[RajeshA]

However why do you consider i am being an optimist as far as figures with trade to US and GDP go?

Harbans Ji, you have misunderstood me. It was not criticism. I was merely complimenting you on your post.

With optimist, I meant, one looks at the bright side of things, while many people, including me, at times, look only at the glass half-empty and many who are always . The optimistic perspective gives one the drive to move forward and do things. Optimism is not necessary the nemesis of good analysis. Similarly over-analysis can sometimes lead to paralysis or glut of words and no action.

[harbans]

Rajesh ji, learn and try the 2 card monte on folks around. You'll see the glass half full..

[GSharma]

Cold fusion success in Japan gets warm reception in India

i guess, research into cold fusion tech by india should have been persisted with just like thorium based nuclear tech research. in any case, better late then never.

[RajeshA]

Cold fusion success in Japan gets warm reception in India

i guess, research into cold fusion tech by india should have been persisted with just like thorium based nuclear tech research. in any case, better late then never.

It is an old article from May 2008, but with an evergreen relevance. One needs a lot of dueterium for these reactions. And guess what? India is now probably the world's largest concentrator of heavy water, also used in nuclear power reactors.

[amit]

Similarly over-analysis can sometimes lead to paralysis or glut of words and no action.

Rajesh,

IMHO never a truer word was spoken on this thread!

My compliments to you!

[renukb]

Did India have to do the nuclear deal?
http://www.upiasia.com/Politics/2008/10 ... deal/2023/

By Susenjit Guha

Kolkata, India — Way back in the 1950s and early 1960’s, U.S. media couldn’t really figure out why India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not as comfortable in the United States as he apparently was during his trips to Britain and Western Europe.

Even though former U.S. President John F. Kennedy failed to charm him during a White House visit, journalists noticed that Nehru’s eyes lit up when his wife Jacqueline entered the room.

Later, Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi had her famous face-off with U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1971 – the latter going on record as having used the choicest of expletives over her “obduracy.”

Critics pointed out that India had missed the Greyhound bus many times. First, it was non-alignment, then a strategic partnership with the Soviet Union during the Cold War years, to counter the U.S. alliance and obsession with India’s arch foe, Pakistan.

In one fell swoop, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now turned India’s decades-old U.S. policy on its head. He not only hopped on board, but steered a whole fleet of Greyhound buses right into the Rose Garden at the White House, as if nothing else mattered.

We must wait till the dust settles to discover whether the nuclear deal with the United States was a sell-off of Indian sovereignty, or whether it will light up the country’s remotest villages at a fraction of the present cost and ensure cleaner energy.

We may ask, could India have avoided the nuclear deal? And now that it is done, what will be the fallout?

With Wall Street threatening to crush Main Street – as well as all freeways and country roads – as it did during the Great Depression; with U.S. bonds held by the Chinese and the Arabs; with unemployment figures shooting up; the nuclear deal will ensure billions of dollars worth of U.S. business. There were good incentives for the United States to wrap up the deal quickly.

Still, it was no simple thing for the United States to jump over India’s past record, ignore its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and treat it as a special case. Naturally Pakistan cried foul, wanting a similar arrangement, even though it had sold nuclear secrets clandestinely.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said about the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal: "We have always said that this is a unique arrangement based on India's needs, India's development, based on India's non-proliferation record. This has to do with India and nobody else."

With Pakistan threatening to implode and the economy tethering on the brink, the United States could not afford to lose India. South Asia would have been out of bounds for the United States if the world’s largest democracy was not engaged by the strongest democracy now.

Without India as a counterweight, the United States cannot deal with a dictatorial China that is surging out of bounds.

What were India’s alternatives? Could gas from Iran through Pakistan have taken care of India’s energy needs for the fertilizer and power sectors? On paper, it could have – but at the expense of U.S. interests.

The pipeline would have passed through Pakistan, which is held hostage by terrorists – not only the al-Qaida type, but homegrown – who are blasting away with impunity government and army institutions known to be in cahoots with the United States.

The situation turns graver by the day as unmanned U.S. drones keep killing people inside Pakistan, ratcheting up the militants’ recruitment drive.

In all likelihood, they would not have spared the gas conduit.

Pakistan is itching for a similar nuclear deal with China. From the outset, the Pakistanis tried to bring China into the Iran pipeline project, much to the displeasure of India.

Could India’s energy supply through Pakistan have been assured, considering that Kashmir is the main bone of contention between India and Pakistan, where the Line of Control has been breached more than 30 times this year?

Could Pakistan’s armed forces and Inter-Services Intelligence – still the country’s strongest institutions – be expected to change their attitude toward India, set in stone for the last 60 years?

With the Iran-Pakistan pipeline looking highly impractical, the more attractive alternative was the Indo-U.S. deal. So what are its limitations?

Could India test another nuclear bomb? She could – but the United States would suspend all supplies and take back its raw material and equipment. Does India need to test now? No, but priorities and equations could change in the future.

India’s political will and resilience will be tested if the country is asked to provide foot soldiers for any future military embroilment under a Bush-like president.

The world’s strongest democracy cannot afford to let go of the world’s largest democracy. Similarly, India cannot let go of its chance to gain the technology of the future. For now, India and the United States must be fellow travelers.

[renukb]

The Nuclear Showdown: Part 2- The Battle over Enrichment
Posted by: rycroft on http://PEJ.org Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 07:55 PM
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op= ... =0&thold=0

[Arun_S]

Half digested crap waste of a psudo expert who knows not the subject matter, and has no objective data or analysis to back the parroting. Just IMVHO

N-Tape: Side A, Side B

The deal is needed, but India had better be honourable about testing ...
Sanjay Suri
Even if the Americans have so hopelessly complicated their democracy, and we our politics, some things really are quite clear through the haze of punditry clouding this nuclear business. One, that if India carries out a nuclear test, it cannot go like Oliver and say 'Please, can I have some more, I just blew up what you gave me.' The French too have made that clear; it's just that they don't make a fuss about some things the American way.

Just as quietly, the French also denied India their reprocessing technology, the best bet in the world to cut dependence on new supplies, though there is political promise of fuel supply. The Americans have written their enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) denial into law, in the Hyde Act. And we sound surprised, even betrayed, that the Americans would not break their law to please us. They must be pleased in Dublin, Wellington and Vienna. Weren't these two conditions on testing and technology transfer just what they wanted written into an agreement at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting early September?

Seen from the Left in India, this is one kind of betrayal, seen from the right, another. But look at it straight, and it's nothing of the sort.

Much of the world is astonished, and quite a bit of it envious, that India could have swung such a very amazing deal. India declares it has military nuclear reactors, refuses to open them to inspection, everyone knows it has nuclear weapons, it refuses to make a commitment against producing more, refuses to sign the treaty against possessing nuclear weapons, and still demands resumption of nuclear supplies cut off for all these reasons—and gets it. And yet this isn't good enough for the bjp.

Because India, it says, must test. Speaking purely militarily, it must. The US has carried out 1,032 tests, what was the Soviet Union 715, France 210, China and Britain 45 each. So India's two, in 1974 and then the set in 1998, are really not enough to test through a full nuclear defence. But for that India would need another 50 to 100 tests, not another symbolic one; it would need the uranium, the money, the technology, an economy strong enough to defy the world. India isn't there, face it. The level of testing militarily needed is not an option, we really have no alternative to being honourable.

But nuclear teeth tested a 100 times would still not be the answer to China. The Chinese are of course not to be trusted (if only because you could never trust anyone who eats just about everything). But they'd look to target India through terror via Islamabad, through state support to block Indian exports, not through missiles. The answer to the Chinese is a powered economy, not missile fantasies. That second 'no' on reprocessing is the smaller one. Sure, others have technology that is some steps ahead of what India currently has. But knowledge finds a way of filtering through.

The half-full part is a good deal more than half full. New promise of power for half-working factories, for farmers and their fields, for cities that play dice with darkness. bjp leader L.K. Advani has noticed now that the sun shines, that the wind blows, but this new call to wind and solar rather than nuclear energy is really a lot of cattle waste of the male kind, provoked only by the new hyphenation of nuclear with Congress. Solar and wind are of course wonderful, but they will not on their own substitute uncertain gas and dwindling coal in the time India has, on the scale it needs. Nuclear can.

Along the way, Manmohan Singh's men have sadly had to take positions approaching doublespeak, or at the least speak here and speak there that's not entirely synchronised in tone and emphasis. Because the deal was not, after all, unconditional, nothing ever is.There have been two worlds to deal with, the one within and the one outside. An audible mismatch has arisen frequently between talking sense abroad and talking big at home.

All this has been necessary only because Manmohan is a visionary mired in murk. He had to talk past the opposition to power India's future. Nuclear can mean a costly start, but there is capital around. In time it works—the almost entirely nuclear French now produce the cheapest electricity in Europe, and sell $5 billion worth of it a year, a beacon for India. Now, and not for the first time, we only have us against ourselves.

[ramana]

X-posted from geo-political thread...

Renukb, Add to those the issue of financial meltdown of the West and one realizes that there will be bigger weapons deployed than our dealmakers envisoned. IOW more reliance on nukes. I wouldnt bes surprised if small fish start showing bigger teeth than displayed earlier by way of the tests prior to CTBT run-up.

[Arun_S]

Renukb, Add to those the issue of financial meltdown of the West and one realizes that there will be bigger weapons deployed than our dealmakers envisoned. IOW more reliance on nukes. I wouldnt bes surprised if small fish start showing bigger teeth than displayed earlier by way of the tests prior to CTBT run-up.

Some months ago 'the unsinkable aircraft carrier' decided to keep its submarine based nukes when the current ones shortly reach end of life. Its current fleet has US missiles and US warhead, a historical artifact of cold war.

The new boat will now have new missiles. The British will craft their own missile and will for the first time make their own nukes to fit atop the sub-launched missiles. You are right, due to its own geo-political issues this small fish is very likely to sport fewer but bigger teeth payload. 400-500kT yield weapon being most likely. But that begs the question do British have compact & modern weapons with that yield ! Worth re looking British Nuclear program record.

Each country has its own national requirements dictated by specific needs and constrains. One size does not fit all. All this talk of US/Russia/French moving to 100kt N weapons (due to higher missile accuracy) thus it has to be good and the model for new Nuclear Weapons State like India too, is fallacious. It flys in the face of British choice of ~0.5 MT high yield N weapons, for its Nuclear re-armament & vertical proliferation. And we all know India is in still slowly building its inventory of Nuclear armament.

Surely the lifafa media reporters in India do to have gray cells to look beyond cooked articles provided on a platter by the Agency.

[RajeshA]

India goes uranium hunting in Namibia by Debjoy Sengupta & Manisha Choudhury: Economic Times

KOLKATA: The ink is yet to dry on the Indo-US nuke deal, but the UPA government has already started scouting for uranium mining assets abroad. The first place being explored is Namibia, which caters to 6-8% of the world's uranium oxide requirement.

This was confirmed to ET by a senior member of the Union Cabinet associated with the process. From India's point of view, the development is historic in the sense that this will be the country's maiden entry as a buyer in the world uranium market after the Pokhran test of May 2004, following which all kinds of procurement sanctions were slapped vis-a-vis nuclear technology and fissile materials.

Simultaneously, the government is also considering a policy change in order to facilitate the acquisition of foreign mines to procure uranium abroad.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has asked the external affairs ministry to arrange a trip to Namibia along with officials from the ministry of mines to scout for uranium mining assets in the uranium-rich African country.
"The government is also considering a policy change in order to facilitate the acquisition of foreign mines to procure foreign uranium. Although a final decision is yet to be taken, the necessary process has already begun," Cabinet sources said.

Officials from the Department of Atomic Energy said: “Such visits will now become quite regular since the deal has already been signed. India is now free to acquire mining assets from other countries, process the fissile material and bring it back to India for consumption in nuclear power reactors."

Namibia was chosen for its vast reserves of uranium and its long standing relation with India. India had, in fact, been at the vanguard of Namibia's liberation movement. Now, it seems, it's payback time for Namibia. {RajeshA: No need to be abrasive towards friends}
India took the lead in supporting the Namibian liberation struggle and provided all possible moral, material and diplomatic support to the Namibian leadership in exile.

The Indian assistance covered training, medicines, humanitarian relief. Besides implementing the Africa fund, India also contributed to the Special NAM Fund for Namibia, the NAM Solidarity Fund for Namibia and the Commonwealth Special Training Programme for Namibia.

Namibia, which borders South Africa, Botswana, Angola and the South Atlantic Ocean, is one of the world's key uranium producers. The country offers uranium mines on 100% ownership basis. The fissile material constitutes about 10% of the country's exports.

Interestingly, the Namibian government recently licensed its third uranium mine to French nuclear reactor builder Areva. According to reports, Areva will produce between 2.3 million and 3.6 million kg of uranium oxide a year over nine years.

[Paul]

Sam Nujoma of SWAPO - South west africa People's org was a good friend of India. I recall Rajeev Gandhi and he had a close relationship.

[RajeshA]

I remember mentioning this also as the PM met the current Namibia president at the G-8 Summit in Japan earlier this year.

Manmohan leaves for U.S., France : Hindu

The Prime Minister will also meet leaders of Italy, the U.K. and Namibia.

Yeahhhh...! Let's cut the yellow cake!

One should note:

India took the lead in allowing an Embassy of SWAPO in India. SWAPO (South West African People's Organization) fought for Namibia's independence. The First President of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, had a good relationship with Indira Gandhi and paid a visit to India.

[renukb]

India Can Conduct N-Test, But What For! Date Submitted: Fri Oct 17, 2008
BY MOHINDER SINGH
http://www.indiajournal.com/pages/event.php?id=4861

The main advantage and benefit which India gets from the enactment of the India-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation legislation Is that India has been liberated from 34 years of isolation from the global mainstream in civil nuclear energy technology when India conducted the first nuclear test in 1974. Since then India had not been allowed to trade in nuclear material, nuclear reactors and nuclear raw materials. It was a very harsh punishment and India suffered a lot economically and financially.

Now India has the freedom to globally trade in nuclear energy, not only with the U.S. but also with any country on mutually agreed upon terms.

Now the time is ripe for India to accelerate and accentuate its plans and programs for rapid industrialization in the country for further economic growth and development.

Let it be made crystal clear to the unimaginative and ignorant critics of the India-US civil nuclear deal that in spite of the deal India still retains the sovereign right to conduct a nuclear test. But the pertinent question arises as to what for! Should India conduct a nuclear test to again invite sanctions from the whole world and again suffer economically and financially.

By successfully conducting nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998, India has already demonstrated to the world that India is a nuclear power. And the whole world is fully aware of it. Established nuclear powers never conduct tests again and again. So why should India conduct a nuclear test again?

India had declared a voluntary moratorium on future nuclear tests after the 1998 atomic test at Pokharan in Rajasthan.

Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel for moving our motherland forward on the path of progress and development and not foolishly think of retarding backward.

[renukb]

N-deal with India "net gain" for non-proliferation regime: US
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.ns ... enDocument

Sridhar Krishnaswami
Washington, Oct 16 (PTI) India's enhanced non- proliferation commitments under the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal constitute a "net gain" for the global non- proliferation regime, the Bush administration said today, adding there were "powerful" strategic, political, economic, and environmental reasons" to support the Initiative.

Detailing the benefits of the Initiative launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush on July 18, 2005, the State Department in a Fact Sheet said the steps taken by India, a non-signatory to the NPT, would enhance the global non-proliferation regime and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"India's enhanced non-proliferation commitments strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation framework and constitute a net gain for the global nonproliferation regime," it said on the "unprecedented three-year effort" by the two governments to get all the necessary approvals, including that of the IAEA and the NSG for the deal as it welcomed New Delhi to the non-proliferation "mainstream." "Together, they constitute a dramatic change in moving India into closer conformity with international non-proliferation standards and practices, and form a firm foundation for the U.S. And India to strengthen our efforts in the future to prevent WMD proliferation and to combat terrorism," the Fact Sheet said, nearly a week after New Delhi and Washington completed all formalities on the deal.

"There are powerful security, political, economic, and environmental reasons to support this Initiative," it said. PTI

[Gerard]

The new boat will now have new missiles. The British will craft their own missile and will for the first time make their own nukes to fit atop the sub-launched missiles.

Actually no.

The UK system is being upgraded, then replaced under the 1958 MDA with the US.
They will deploy US missiles and US designed warheads.

The UK is forced to do this because crucial elements of their deterrent are supplied off the shelf from the US. American companies in the UK maintain the deterrent. Warhead components come from the US.

Since the US is undertaking warhead and missile life extension, and replacing subsystems, the UK is obliged to follow. The UK doesn't own any missiles. They are leased and supplied from a common pool at King's Bay in Georgia, USA. Their warheads are US designs, with modifications (such as different chemical explosives used) made by the UK. The UK is unable to maintain their deterrent without the US support and if the US moves on to a new system, the UK must also.

The proposed RRW replacement for the W76 (100kt) is also 100kt. This is the warhead variant the UK uses and thus their new warhead will be of this yield.

[Gerard]

Under RRW, the emphasis is on reliable. The W76 has a radiation case so thin that some doubt the secondary will perform (or even explode) as intended. The US is moving away from designs that push the edge.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32929.pdf

ballistic missiles carry fewer warheads than they did during the Cold War,
so each warhead can be heavier. In particular, the first RRW, “WR1,” which is to
replace some W76 warheads now on the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic
missile, will have the yield of the W76 but the higher weight of the W88, resulting
in less yield per unit weight. The added weight is allocated to design features to
improve use control, margin (excess performance designed into a warhead beyond
the minimum required for it to perform as intended), ease of production, and the like

[Arun_S]

Since the US is undertaking warhead and missile life extension, and replacing subsystems, the UK is obliged to follow. The UK doesn't own any missiles. They are leased and supplied from a common pool at King's Bay in Georgia, USA. Their warheads are US designs, with modifications (such as different chemical explosives used) made by the UK. The UK is unable to maintain their deterrent without the US support and if the US moves on to a new system, the UK must also.

The proposed RRW replacement for the W76 (100kt) is also 100kt. This is the warhead variant the UK uses and thus their new warhead will be of this yield.

Well just wait for the future and we will know when the fat lady takes to sea, but I assert that British warhead this time will be their own and much higher yld.

[Neshant]

ISLAMABAD: Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Saturday said China has signed an agreement with Pakistan to help it build two more nuclear power plants.

is this not in violation of the rules of the NPT.

if so, then the NPT is irrelavant.

[Rye]

This is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan saying such things

[Neshant]

"However, Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday that China, which signed the NPT in the 1990s, was willing to continue helping Pakistan with its nuclear programs.."

[gandharva]

NPT rider to nuclear deal
K.P. NAYAR

Bush: Job not over
Washington, Oct. 18: The Indo-US nuclear deal will not be operationalised until the White House formally certifies to the US Congress that the 123 Agreement signed this month is consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which India has rejected.

Before the 123 Agreement can “enter into force”, President George W. Bush will also have to commit on Capitol Hill that it is the policy of his administration to work with Nuclear Suppliers Group members to further restrict transfers of equipment and technology related to uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

Evan Feigenbaum, deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, yesterday told Indian journalists here that “it is basically a bureaucratic process” that was expected to be completed “pretty soon”.

But that may not be how opponents of the nuclear deal in India will view Washington’s position. They will insist that the Americans are attempting to tighten the noose on India’s nuclear programme and carrying out their consistent position that the deal is an effort to strengthen global non-proliferation and bring India more into its ambit.

Feigenbaum said: “There are two certifications in the bill. You can read them in the bill. Those are now at the White House.”

There will be several more steps down the bureaucratic path, however, before any actual nuclear commerce between India and the US can begin, according to the road map that Feigenbaum laid on the table yesterday.

For instance, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission will issue licences to nuclear power companies to export to India only after another certification that Delhi’s safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency has entered into force.

Yet another certification will require a declaration by India to the IAEA that its safeguards agreement is materially consistent with the separation plan that was announced following the nuclear deal in 2005.

That plan distinguishes India’s nuclear weapons programme from its civilian effort in terms of the existing nuclear reactors and the ones that are planned for the future.

The Indian government will also be required to sign the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, without which no US company will export to India.

There appears to be confidence in Washington that India and the US will exchange diplomatic notes to enter the 123 Agreement into force soon and that all other requirements to begin nuclear commerce will follow because a US commerce department-sponsored nuclear trade mission to New Delhi is being put together for December.


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081019/j ... 988346.jsp

[NRao]

ISLAMABAD: Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Saturday said China has signed an agreement with Pakistan to help it build two more nuclear power plants.

is this not in violation of the rules of the NPT.

if so, then the NPT is irrelavant.

Even if they are under IAEA? (I would expect both to be under IAEA.)

However, wrong thread, but, US Marines to hold joint exercise in Ladakh. (After the Royal Marines just completed similar exercises.)

[Neshant]

India has for years said it was willing to put any newly foreign built reactor under the IAEA while being outside the NPT but the NPT forbids members from doing any such deals.

The only reason Russia was able to build the 2 reactors was because the agreement preceeds the signing of the NPT.

That China is conducting a reactor deal in spite of signing the NPT means the NPT itself is irrelavant.

[Mihir]

This is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan saying such things

B Raman - China Avoids NSG Waiver Initiative in Favour of Pakistan
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org//paper ... r2883.html

10. Before Zardari's arrival in Beijing, Masood Khan, Pakistan's Ambassador to China, had claimed that an agreement on civilian nuclear co-operation with China could be reached during the visit. No such agreement figures in the list of agreements signed by the two countries during the visit as released by the Xinhua, the Chinese New Agency. (Annexure).

11. It is, however, learnt from reliable sources that while the Chinese reiterated their commitment in principle made to Pervez Musharraf to supply two more nuclear power stations (Chashmas III and IV ), they avoided any commitment on Pakistan's request for a Chinese initiative to get an NSG waiver. Without such a waiver, Chashmas III and IV would remain non-starters. In view of the expected US opposition to any waiver till Pakistan allows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to have Dr.A.Q.Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, interrogated by an independent team of investigators on his non-proliferation activities, China is not confident of a waiver in favour of Pakistan till the A.Q. Khan issue is resolved. It reportedly does not want to take any initiative in this matter lest it face an embarrassment if its proposal is rejected by the NSG. The present Government in Pakistan, like the previous Government of Musharraf, is opposed to any IAEA interrogation of Khan. The Chinese are also not very keen on that since Khan knows a lot not only about the proliferation activities of Pakistan, but also of China.

Nishant, hope this helps.

[Gerard]

the NPT forbids members from doing any such deals.

sigh...
Even BRF veterans believe this non proliferation ayatollah rubbish?

The NPT does no such thing. It says (Article III.2)

2. Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the safeguards required by this article.

The NPT does not prohibit trade with non-state parties. It simply requires that there be safeguards.

It is the NSG cartel rules that China will be breaking (unless it can argue 'grandfathering') by suppling reactors.

[Neshant]

Dude read the next line in that article :

3. The safeguards required by this Article shall be implemented in a manner designed to comply with Article IV of this Treaty....

What are the safeguards :

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treatyin a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.


needless to say, pakistan which exploded a nuke and is not PARTY TO THE TREATY is not considered to be under any safe-guard. Safe-guard in this aspect does not mean you build an entire nuke program and then call for international assistance to build more reactors promising to put them under IAEA safeguards. What is the point of a treaty if everyone does that?

The whole reason US had to approach the NPT after the deal with India is to get an exemption for India in this regard.

[Gerard]

This is from testimony by Condi Rice to the US Senate

Article III(2) establishes the basis under which NPT parties may engage in nuclear cooperation with safeguarded facilities in countries that are not parties and do not have full-scope safeguards"

"This conclusion is also supported by the practice of the parties to the NPT. The U.S. and Canada engaged in nuclear cooperation with India before and after the NPT entered into force. The supply of fuel under facility-specific (INFCIRC/66) safeguards agreements was understood to satisfy our obligations under the NPT. Even after India’s 1974 detonation, fuel was provided to India’s safeguarded Tarapur reactors by the United States, France, and Russia."

"nothing in the NPT, its negotiating history, or the practice of the parties supports the notion that fuel supply to safeguarded reactors for peaceful purposes could be construed as “assisting in the manufacture of nuclear weapons” for purposes of Article I. "

"nuclear cooperation under safeguards does not fundamentally differ from other forms of energy cooperation (e.g., oil supply, clean coal technology, alternative fuels). All such energy assistance would arguably relieve India of its reliance on domestic uranium for energy production. Yet such energy assistance clearly could not be viewed as assisting India in the manufacture of nuclear weapons."

[Gerard]

This is from the Ashley Tellis article "Atoms for War"

To begin with, even if U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation were to liberate India’s natural uranium reserves for use in weapons production, the claim that such substitution effects would make nuclear cooperation with India illegal under the NPT is based on a novel legal interpretation of U.S. obligations that has never been accepted by the U.S. government since the United States signed the treaty in 1968. In fact, the NPT itself does not require full-scope safeguards as a condition for civil nuclear cooperation with any safeguarded facilities. (The condition of full-scope safeguards is a U.S. innovation that postdates the NPT: it was enacted into U.S. law under the 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act (NNPA) and became part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines in 1992, but is not a constituent condition in the NPT itself.) What the NPT simply requires is that all state parties undertake not to provide certain nuclear materials and equipment to any non-nuclear weapon state (or non-signatories) for peaceful purposes unless these materials and equipment are subjected to safeguards. This requirement is encoded in Article III (2) of the NPT, and it has guided previous efforts at U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation just as it has regulated other Chinese,
French, and Russian peaceful nuclear cooperation activities with India. If the critics’ current claims are therefore taken seriously, China, France, Russia, and the United States have already been in violation of their Article I obligations because of past nuclear cooperation with India—an assertion that no serious jurist has ever advanced previously and that at any rate would be roundly rejected not only by these governments but all other non-nuclear weapon states, such as Canada, which have cooperated with India as well. The simple fact of the matter is that the NPT does not treat peaceful nuclear cooperation under safeguards as assisting a non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture nuclear weapons. Indeed, Article III (2) establishes the basis under which parties may engage in nuclear cooperation with safeguarded facilities in countries that are not parties to the NPT and do not have full-scope safeguards. Previous practice abundantly confirms this view, as a number of countries—Canada, China, France, Russia, and the United States—have provided fuel to India’s safeguarded facilities under facility-specific (INFCIRC/66) safeguards agreements both before and after the NPT entered into force and before and after India first detonated a nuclear explosive device in 1974. The current Russian civilian nuclear cooperation program, involving the construction of two light water reactors at Koodankulam in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is also occurring under the same understanding. In every case, nuclear cooperation taking place under facility-specific safeguards agreements—a standard form of collaboration under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency—was understood to fully satisfy all the obligations incurred by the state parties under the NPT.

[Gerard]

pakistan which exploded a nuke and is not PARTY TO THE TREATY is not considered to be under any safe-guard.

This would be news to Dr ElBaradei and the IAEA safeguards inspectors in Pakistan....

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Docume ... irc239.pdf

INFCIRC/239 | 22 June 1976 [47 kb]
Title: THE TEXT OF THE SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT OF 18 MARCH 1976 BETWEEN THE AGENCY, FRANCE AND PAKISTAN
Summary: The text of the Agreement of 18 March 1976 between the Agency, France and Pakistan for the application of safeguards with respect to a fuel reprocessing plant and to nuclear material, facilities, equipment and relevant technological information supplied by France to Pakistan for the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy is reproduced for the information of all Members...

INFCIRC/248 | 7 July 1977
Title: THE TEXT OF THE AGREEMENT OF 2 MARCH 1977 BETWEEN THE AGENCY AND PAKISTAN FOR THE APPLICATION OF SAFEGUARDS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPPLY OF URANIUM CONCENTRATE

INFCIRC/393 | Oct. 1990
Title: AGREEMENT OF 10 SEPTEMBER 1991 BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN FOR THE APPLICATION OF SAFEGUARDS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPPLY OF A MINIATURE NEUTRON SOURCE REACTOR FROM THE PEOPLE´S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Summary: The text of the Agreement between the Agency and Pakistan for the application of safeguards in connection with the supply of a miniature neutron source reactor from the People´s Republic of China is reproduced for the information of all Members...

INFCIRC/418 | March 1993 [22 kb]
Title: AGREEMENT OF 24 FEBRUARY 1993 BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN FOR THE APPLICATION OF SAFEGUARDS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPPLY OF A NUCLEAR POWER STATION FROM THE PEOPLE´S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

INFCIRC/705 | 17 May 2007 [88 kb]
Title: AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN FOR THE APPLICATION OF SAFEGUARDS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUPPLY OF A NUCLEAR POWER STATION FROM THE PEOPLE´S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

etc

[Gerard]

Lavrov to finalise nuclear deal with India

[Gerard]

US nuclear players press India for liability framework

[Neshant]

US nuclear players press India for liability framework

that way if they create a chernobyl or a union carbide type disaster, they can just pack their stuff and leave leaving people to deal with the mess.

now watch the govt just go ahead and approve it blindly.

[Manny]

US nuclear players press India for liability framework

that way if they create a chernobyl or a union carbide type disaster, they can just pack their stuff and leave leaving people to deal with the mess.

now watch the govt just go ahead and approve it blindly.

What will France or Russian firms do if something similar happens?

[NRao]

that way if they create a chernobyl or a union carbide type disaster, they can just pack their stuff and leave leaving people to deal with the mess.

now watch the govt just go ahead and approve it blindly.

What will France or Russian firms do if something similar happens?

From the same article:

State-owned French and Russian nuclear companies, which have sovereign backing, are more or less immune to any such liability.

The liability is carried by their state.

Indian GoI should asl US companies to bear the responsibilities.

[NRao]

NRao -- the point about limited N fuel has been made time and again on the board here -- but I wonder why that elephant in the room is missed out in the non BRF discussion on the deal in the media?

Aug, 2008 :: Q&A: Thorium Reactor Designer Ratan Kumar Sinha

The supply of uranium is not perpetual. With the rate at which nuclear programs are growing worldwide, it is projected that by 2028 any new power plant will not have a guaranteed lifetime of uranium supply. So, one has to go for recycling as well as thorium. I don't see any shortcut as such.

"lifetime" typically, for the average reactor, is 40 years.

[Philip]

Nukes,testing...what for? There are very good reasons for the same!

There is an excellent feature in the IDR about two years ago,giving in detail the US's development of smaller N-warheads allied with more accurate missiles and PGMs.It also gave historic reasons for the same.High rate of production of N-warhead plants now shut down,life-span of N-warheads-about 25 years and how their designs,using glueing together of N-material in the warheads saw "cracked joints" with time,etc.Computer simulation through newer high speed computers allowed better simulation of the lifespan of such old warheads.These were achievable "only after" the thousands of N-tests that the US conducted over the last 50+ years.It is virtually impossible for India which has conducted so few tests to achieve the same dexerity and accuracy in our N-warhead designs without future tests,leaving aside the possibility of China and Pak,N.Korea or anyone else testing at a later date.Those spin-doctors who are questioning our right to future testing are clearly "fifth-columnists",agents of the US/CIA or the PRC and they should be immediately investigated by our intel agancies,that is if they can given that the greatest agent of binding India to the jackboot of Uncle Sam and the dying days of Bush's adventurism and neo-conservatism is none other than the PM himself !

Fortunately,Def.Sec. Gates has, in the words of a US friend who knows him,"effectively "castrated" Dick-the-Prick Cheney and the evil,toxic influence of the Neo-cons that ruled the roost in the White House.We have therefore perhaps been spared the attack on Iran that would've seen the world plunged into Armageddon.The plans however are still in place and one cannot predict the future,therefore,the right of India to keep all its nuclear options open including testing are the fundamentals of our strategic deterrent,which vested anti-Indian interests are trying to sabotage.

Here is another feature (though dated) on the subject,how the US/UK are modernising their arsenals while trying to maintain their global nuclear supremacy.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:Oj ... cd=1&gl=in

The United States, nuclear weapons, and Iran
Paul Rogers

The United States and its British ally are planning to modernise their nuclear-weapons arsenal while castigating Iran for its nuclear-power programme.12 - 01 - 2006


The insurgency in Iraq was the main focus of attention for United States political and military leaders seeking to prosecute the “war on terror” during 2005. But as the year progressed, their concern with developments in Iran increased, to the extent that the possibility of military action against the Tehran regime over its nuclear plans – whether by the United States itself, or by its close ally Israel – started to be seriously discussed.

This developing tension has reached an acute stage in the opening days of 2006. The decision of the administration led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to restart research into uranium enrichment at its Natanz plant has provoked the United States and Britain to warn that Iran risks referral to the United Nations Security Council, with the possibility of sanctions being imposed.

More immediately, an emergency session of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is likely to be called, especially if a forthcoming report by the IAEA’s director-general Mohamed ElBaradei confirms that he has failed to persuade Iran to share the full details of its nuclear programmes.

Words and deeds

The background to the increasing controversy over Iran’s nuclear development includes a fundamental reality: the current United States administration is deeply opposed to any acquisition by Iran of material that would allow Tehran to produce its own nuclear weapons. Much of the wider neo-conservative community in Washington also sees it as unacceptable for Iran even to get as far as having a civil nuclear-power programme that involves indigenous enrichment of uranium. The fact that such a process could quite easily lead to further refinement to weapons-grade quality is seen in Washington as far too risky to contemplate.

This attitude involves a departure from the principles of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) that came into force in 1970. This allows non-nuclear weapon states to develop civil nuclear power but not weapons, with IAEA inspections being available to prevent cheating. The current US outlook is that the NPT process should no longer apply to those states it describes as “rogue” or part of the “axis of evil”. This attitude helped ensure that the NPT review conference in New York in May 2005 achieved so little.


One of the problems for the United States in maintaining this hawkish outlook is that it comes across in much of the world as very much a case of “do as we say, not as we do”. The United States itself maintains a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it has supplemented in recent years with the deployment of a new type of weapon: the earth-penetrating or “bunker-buster” bomb that burrows underground before detonating, destroying facilities such as deeply-buried chemical or biological weapon stores (see “America’s nuclear stealth war”, 10 February 2005).

It is not actually fair to see the United States as the only culprit, given that Russia would want to develop new nuclear weapons if funding allowed, that France and China are modernising their own smaller nuclear forces and that there is every chance that Britain will replace its Trident nuclear force within the next few years.

Even so, the United States’s difficulties with Iran have made it the most determined to change the NPT bargain, whose essence lies in the treaty’s Article 6 (new states don’t go nuclear but, in return, old nuclear states progressively give up their arsenals). Until the early part of 2005, there were reliable reports that the US was starting to develop a new bunker-busting nuclear bomb, known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP); but Congress cut the funding for this in November 2005, and one result has been a growing belief that the United States will not now try to modernise its existing nuclear weapons or develop new types.

This belief draws support from the fact that most of the old infrastructure developed in the US in the 1950s and 1960s to develop and build nuclear weapons was shut down after the end of the cold war (although this had more to do with concerns over the safety of the facilities rather than a political decision to disarm). It is further reinforced by the Congressional funding ban on the RNEP.

But recent information challenges the assumption that the nuclear age is over or at least in abeyance as far as the United States is concerned. A revealing article in the leading military journal Jane’s International Defence Review (IDR, January 2006) provides details of plans for upgrading and replacing existing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. There are also indications of the close working relationship now existing between the big US nuclear-research laboratories and their smaller British counterpart at Aldermaston; it is evident that the latter is already looking to develop a replacement for the Trident system, in collaboration with the US, although the British government continues to claim that no decision has been made.

One of the recent significant changes is in the seemingly innocuous Stockpile Stewardship Programme, established in 1993 to ensure that the many thousands of nuclear warheads in the US nuclear arsenal would continue to function rather than decay. It now appears that the programme goes well beyond this in that, as the IDR reports, it “also underpins the next stage in the maintenance of the nuclear stockpile – the development of a new family of nuclear weapons that will keep the ultimate nuclear option workable, [i.e. fighting a nuclear war] while also making it less costly to maintain and more secure.”

America’s nuclear arsenal

The US nuclear arsenal has four components. Three are known as “legs” of a strategic triad of nuclear weapons based on land (intercontinental ballistic missiles such as the 500 Minuteman III missiles now deployed), sea (like the Trident submarine-launched missile) and air (long-range aircraft such as the B-2 stealth bomber). The fourth category is that of tactical nuclear weapons, less destructive weapons that might be delivered by strike aircraft. Although smaller than the strategic weapons, many of them greatly exceed the destructiveness of the crude Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that together killed directly around 160,000 people.

Across the whole of the nuclear arsenal, modernisation is the order of the day. The Minuteman III long-range land-based missile has recently been upgraded so that it will be able to be kept deployed for up to thirty years, yet thought is already being given to a replacement known as the Land-Based Strategic Deterrent, that could still be deployed in 2060. Similarly, the Trident nuclear missile still has well over a decade of deployment ahead of it, yet a replacement is being planned.

This may be the first example of an entirely new nuclear weapon produced under what is termed the Reliable Replacement Warhead programme (RRW) and started only in May 2005. An agreed design for an RRW warhead for a Trident replacement could be agreed in 2006, with the first warhead ready by 2012, provided Congress approves.

That is not certain, given Congressional opposition to the RNEP (bunker-buster) earlier in the year, but even here the designers are in a position to hedge their bets. In its desire to be able to destroy deeply-buried targets, the US air force is developing a conventional bunker-buster, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator being built by Boeing. This is expected to have a number of features that could be adapted for use in a nuclear-armed version, speeding up the process of developing such a bomb in the future.

As to the British involvement, if an early example of the RRW programme is a replacement for the Trident warhead, this would suit the British very well, with the prospect of close collaboration and maybe even the sharing of some development costs.

What this means overall is that Britain is likely to play a significant part in the long-term future of the United States’s nuclear arsenals. If the British version of Trident is replaced in ten to fifteen years’ time, then its successor will have a deployment span of at least twenty-five years, stretching Britain’s nuclear intentions some forty years into the future. In the case of the United States, a successor to the recently modernised Minuteman is already being considered, and this means that the US nuclear-weapons industry is looking fifty years ahead.

It is all a very long way from the requirements of the non-proliferation treaty – indeed that is now treated as little more than a joke in Washington. The problem such plans and attitudes carry is that they cannot be reconciled with firm opposition to countries such as Iran wanting to develop their own nuclear forces. The “hypocrisy factor” is a notorious feature of the world of nuclear weapons, but the fact that the US and Britain are looking ahead as many as forty to fifty years does give it an added potency. The way that these states can contemplate their own nuclear-weapons modernisation while blithely scorning Iran for even considering the development of an integrated civil nuclear-power programme reveals a policy stance rapidly becoming untenable.

Washington, needless to say, sees things very differently. If Israel does not get there first, the United States may launch military action against Iran in the fairly near future, just as its own new nuclear-weapons plans are leaving the drawing-board. The contradiction may not be obvious inside the Beltway bubble, but it is obvious in Tehran and across much of the world.

In addition to his weekly open Democracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group.
A collection of Paul Rogers’s Oxford Research Group briefings, Iraq and the War on Terror: Twelve Months of Insurgency, 2004-05 is published by IB Tauris (October 2005)

Arun's 2007 INDR articles should also be read in context with this,while his thesis that we have an affordable robust delivery system through the Agni series of missiles,how we will be able to maintain and modernise our N-weapons in the light of unbridled N-weaponry development of the US and other N-powers is an unanswered question that this deal brings into sharp focus.

[NRao]

GE eyes one-third of India's nuclear business

Shweta Rajpal Kohli
Monday, October 20, 2008, (Fairfield, Connecticut)

One of the world's largest firms GE is now eyeing one third of India's nuclear business. Making a strong case in favour of the company, its CEO Jeff Immelt told NDTV in an exclusive interview that he has lobbied hard to get the Indo-US nuclear deal cleared and now expects a fair share of business in return.

And to further strengthen Indo-American ties he feels the new American President should make India among his first stops after taking over.

Here are excerpts from an exclusive interview to NDTV from GE's global headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Jeff: The thing that we are great at as a company that India needs is infrastructure. So we think the opportunity to have a nuclear industry in India is quite attractive.
NDTV: Different figures are doing the rounds on the size of India's nuclear business that runs into hundreds of billions of dollars. How big is the opportunity and how much of it does GE want to capture?

Jeff: Here's what I know about the nuclear business. When asked how big it will be the standard answer should be I don't know. Anybody that makes projections around the nuclear industry does so at their own peril. So could nuclear will be a big industry in India? Absolutely, and I think GE should get its fair share.

NDTV: And what would be a fair share?

Jeff: I don't know. May be a third, 25-30 per cent, one of the reasons why I am happy to talk to you. I think the government and the businesses in India who value this treaty that's been signed should look at GE as being a good friend. We pushed it, we used our reputation here in the United States to get it through. We've been a loyal and trusted friend to India for a long time. So I would be disappointed if we didn't get our fair share.

NDTV: What do you expect the government to do to ensure you get a fair share?

Jeff: Just by giving us right partnerships. We don't expect to be given anything. We have to earn it. We have to compete but the government can ensure we have the right partnerships, making sure the right legal framework is in place for liabiliy protection and things like that. Some of what we have in the US. Transparency. These are the steps government can take.

NDTV: The deal will revive GE's relationship with India but it has also helped revive Indo-US ties. How do you see the relationship between two countries strengthening?

Jeff: Whoever becomes President in next couple of weeks in the US, one of the first places they should go should be India because as you think of the development of the world over the next 100 years every bit that's great is the relationship we have with Europe, France, UK, we've got to have that kind of relationship with India. This is I think strategic for the US with a country that fundamentally looks to America as a friend.

[sraj]

US nuclear players press India for liability framework

Any liability cover offered by GoI should be directly linked to fuel supply, through a law enacted by Parliament (can be part of the Jekyll Act or a separate law or an amendment to an existing law).

Fuel supply to a facility is disrupted for any reason whatsoever == Any liability cover provided by GoI automatically becomes null and void on the same date. Such liability cover cannot be restored until and unless fuel supply is restored to the facility.