India Nuclear News And Discussion

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 05 Mar 2010 03:23

^^^ Yup read that

But that does not address the deaths (BTW it's 9 deaths not 7)

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 05 Mar 2010 05:42

Limiting nuclear liability may affect safety standards, Finance Ministry said

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 05 Mar 2010 06:16

Jarita wrote:Do an online search and you'll see how pakistani media is using the deaths of the scientists to claim that India's nuke program is unsafe. That makes things very interesting indeed
If there is hanky panky going on with the deaths and anyone has the motive it is our two illustrious neighbours. Given the clumsiness with which this is executed if at all, illustrious neighbour to the west might be the proxy.

Agreed with you on that Jarita, however ameerkhans have done more damage single handed than anybody else. Remember that there are many CT's and rumors floating around over Vikram Sarabhai's death, it is one event which was hastily pushed under the carpet IIRC. Perhaps, we are seeing a repeat of that with some inconvenient truths out in the open.

Very uncomfortable onlee seeing desh bearing the pain

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 05 Mar 2010 06:43

Meghalaya to seek scientific opinion on uranium mining

arun · Post by **arun** » 05 Mar 2010 07:29

Jarita wrote:7th nuke scientist dead in last 1 year max.
All of unnatural causes.
Forget about the Kaiga episode
How many nuke scientists do we have? Simple statistical analysis will tell you if this is beyond the pale

As a start for your statistical analyses, NPCIL has 12,000 employees (See Page 24)

neeraj · Post by **neeraj** » 05 Mar 2010 13:59

Gerard wrote:Meghalaya to seek scientific opinion on uranium mining
The UCIL plans to produce 375,000 tonnes of uranium ore a year and process 1,500 tonnes of the mineral a day.

How much of that translates to usable fuel. Is it enough to supply all of the current and proposed nuclear plants!!

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 05 Mar 2010 16:25

nukavarapu wrote:Do we have any autonomous body (Not linked to DAE or BARC) to perform a security audit and certify Uranimum Mining and/or Nuclear plants? Do we have any standards that we follow in domestic nuclear industry?

The AERB

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 05 Mar 2010 19:17

nukavarapu wrote:Finally the reason behind the fire accident resulting in two internes' death BARC has come out:

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?675698

Reason for the fire accident as indicated by the report of Investigation Committee set up by BARC is low intensity explosive energy released from accidental mixing of small quantities of reactive chemicals stored in the Chemical Laboratory

Public disclosure identifyig these "reactive chemicals" is conspicuous by its absence, at least so far.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 05 Mar 2010 22:11

OK.
Just a back of the envelope calculation (very back of the envelope

)

Indias suicide rate is 11 per 100K and murder rate is 2.82 per 100K.
Assuming that these are a combination of the two the rate should be 13.82 or make it 14 for calculative ease
Plus remember that most of these occur in not so privilaged sections of Indian societies (Nuke scientists are reasonably well off)

At 12000 employees, it should extrapolate to ~1.7 suicides + murders.

(I have not incorporated sd or other variables such as income level etc, imposs to do a proper statistical analysis with existing data).

Does not 9 (or even 7) sound remarkably high?

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 05 Mar 2010 22:18

Klaus wrote:
Jarita wrote:Do an online search and you'll see how pakistani media is using the deaths of the scientists to claim that India's nuke program is unsafe. That makes things very interesting indeed
If there is hanky panky going on with the deaths and anyone has the motive it is our two illustrious neighbours. Given the clumsiness with which this is executed if at all, illustrious neighbour to the west might be the proxy.
Agreed with you on that Jarita, however ameerkhans have done more damage single handed than anybody else. Remember that there are many CT's and rumors floating around over Vikram Sarabhai's death, it is one event which was hastily pushed under the carpet IIRC. Perhaps, we are seeing a repeat of that with some inconvenient truths out in the open.

Very uncomfortable onlee seeing desh bearing the pain

Unfortunately, I don't know much abt Sarabhais death. When did that happen? And could you provide us with some details, please?

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 05 Mar 2010 23:40

"OK.
Just a back of the envelope calculation (very back of the envelope )

Indias suicide rate is 11 per 100K and murder rate is 2.82 per 100K."

Any idea how this compares with other countries? Is it above or below the average. We do hear in the media of many suicides by students cracking under the pressure to get very high marks.
(perhaps the subject belongs in another thread like "Know your India")

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Mar 2010 23:43

Varoon Shekhar wrote:"OK.
Just a back of the envelope calculation (very back of the envelope )

Indias suicide rate is 11 per 100K and murder rate is 2.82 per 100K."

Any idea how this compares with other countries? Is it above or below the average. We do hear in the media of many suicides by students cracking under the pressure to get very high marks.
(perhaps the subject belongs in another thread like "Know your India")

Nice thought but how does that contribute to this thread? So delete and post in relevant thread.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 06 Mar 2010 00:11

Unfortunately, I don't know much abt Sarabhais death. When did that happen? And could you provide us with some details, please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Sarabhai#Death

During his last days, he was under a great amount of stress due to excessive travelling and a huge work-load which adversely affected his health. He did not wake up to celebrate the New Year. He died in his sleep at Halcyon Castle and was apparently a victim of a silent heart attack.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 910516.cms

Death came to Vikram Sarabhai in a quiet room of his favourite resort on Kovalam beach after he had witnessed firing of a Russian rocket and inaugurated Thumba railway station to retire for the night.

Strange that there was no scientific inquiry on this celebrated scientist's death.

Amrita Shah, in her book Vikram Sarabhai - a life' mentions about murmurs of international foul play'. Kamla Chaudhary, a close associate of Vikrambhai at IIM-A is quoted saying, "Vikram had told me that he was being watched by both Americans and Russians."

"The whole process would have been quite unpleasant," says his son Kartikeya, when asked about carrying out an inquest. "It was my grandmother, Sarladevi's decision not to have a postmortem," he adds.

Mallika, then 17, was shooting for her first film at Mumbai. "When Amma told me, I first thought it was a plane crash because papa's medical reports were fine," says Mallika who later lit his pyre something that came quite naturally to the Sarabhais

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 07 Mar 2010 01:06

Go for thorium-based reactors: Kalam

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... 7C6QYp3kQ=

After inaugurating the Commonwealth Science and Technology Academy for Research here on Friday, he said thorium, a non-fissile material, was available in abundanne in the country and suggested that intensive research is essential for maximising its utilisation and generation of electricity through reactors

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 07 Mar 2010 02:05

Posting tweets again

Yes, they might be bogus but we have to get to bottom of these deaths

-Seven deaths of experienced scientist who are handing sensitive Nuke technology is some thing we need to question
-Research for converting Thorium into uranium started way back in 1997-98. This was started to secure our energy future.
- This is something Kalam told us when he addressed us in college in 2002 july. I am stating what he said.
-Mahalingam has written to PM about the Nuke Deal. He was the one got killed in Kaiga.
- Kerala and TN has got huge amount of Thorium. It gets converted to Uranium, it will come for more 400-500 years.Huge deposit
-4 of the scientists are from TN; worked in Converting thorium into uranium.
- Two of these scientist who are no more have written to PM against the Nuke Deal. Establishment hand is not ruled out.
- Very True. This deal has thrown spanner at the works of converting Thorium into uranium.
- These are one who were working on converting Thorium in Uranium. These are Research ones. Not the Maintenance guys.
- Its a serious issue. Just look at my tweets.I am not speculating, Tweeting what my friend told about Kaiga.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 07 Mar 2010 04:59

Where Indian nuclear scientists cut their teeth . . .

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 07 Mar 2010 06:02

Jarita wrote:Posting tweets again
Yes, they might be bogus but we have to get to bottom of these deaths

Ah.. a conspiracy.

First we need some societal changing technology that is allegedly being suppressed by the powers that be. Thorium will do. We'll say that the US wants it suppressed to keep India enslaved. Or the Saudis are fearful of their oil becoming worthless. Never mind that this is all decades away. Most people don't know any better.

Next we need some villains. If this were a US conspiracy, we could use Blackwater and Cheney.
Sadly this is an Indian conspiracy and we're stuck with Manmohan Singh. Damn. We'll need to rope in the spooks to help. Anyway, everyone knows MMS is a traitor who has sold out India hundreds of times. US masters, Saudi masters, all the same to MMS.

We need some hapless victims. A few random deaths in the Indian nuclear establishment will do.
People will see 'nukular' and imagine bombs or Chernobyl. We'll say that the scientists who died are involved in Thorium reactor design. We'll ignore the actual designers of the AHWR and FBR and pretend these random people are 'top scientists'.

The victims need to be uber-patriots. We'll say they all wrote letters to the evil villain Manmohan Singh. Never mind that these are Government employees and bypassing superiors and writing directly to the political elite is the quickest way to end a public sector career. These are patriots after all. They don't care about their jobs.

Next we need some dark secret that will cost these people their lives. Something like a radiation leak or an accident. This has never happened before in India. The DAE will be shut down if this gets out. We'll say they are whistle blowers. We'll have to ignore the fact they didn't write the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, they didn't write Greenpeace, they didn't contact the media. After all, everyone knows that whistle blowers write the Prime Minister. When you're an uber-patriot, who else do you write but MMS?

Perhaps we'll say this is all about shutting down the Thorium program. We'll ignore the fact that work on the FBR and AHWR continues. We'll pretend these people were vital to the programme. They're scientists after all.

We need to link the random deaths. This after all is a conspiracy. We'll say that these people wrote MMS and then died shortly after. Being hapless, they all kept writing after the first few died. We'll hint at dark forces - IB/RAW/Mossad/CIA/ISI behind the deaths. That will surely convince people - MMS and his cabal, just waiting for a letter to dispatch a hit squad.

We need a gullible audience. Wonder where we can find people naive enough to believe this nonsense? The Internet perhaps?

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 07 Mar 2010 07:47

They don't care about their jobs.

Apparently the last few, based on those that were disposed earlier, did not care for their lives too!!!!

Unless of course each of them never knew that the others had written a letter to MMS (was it proper mail or email I wonder).

I will start scanning youtube in six months. Twitter is passe, just words. I want to see THE letters. I am sure ISI will get hold of them and put them on the net - for sure.

And, if youtube cannot be trusted to get to the bottom of these daths, then what is I am not sure.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 07 Mar 2010 07:59

Interesting discussion about nuclear safety (for both materials, and scientists from accidents and suicides), speculations and conspiracy theories...

I was mostly in lurker mode but decided to make some comments and give my perspective here. ... take it for what ever its worth.

nukavarapu wrote:
Amber G. wrote: Which 1% of the report (in your opinion) is true? Can you highlight it? Thanks.
I was referring to the report that claimed:
A 1993 UN report found occupational hazard in nuclear plants in India was over six times the world average.
I think people are dragging my "1%" too hard. It was not meant to be taken in literal sense.

First, thanks Nukavarapuji for answering. So what is being claimed to be true (1% or otherwise)? Is there such a UN Report? (which would be easy to check – Did you check that - there is a such UN report? .. or the person just making that up?) Or are you claiming that such a report does exist and facts it represent may be true? Would be thankful if you can clarify that.

Basically, I would find VERY strange if such a UN report does exist, specially the does it really quotes as

“occupational hazard in nuclear plants in India is six times the word average?”

Or the author just pulling that quote out it out of nowhere?
(this or course would be easy to check, and since you brought this report up, I would like you to check that out)

(I mean, Shivji's point is very valid, if you don't even know data about NK etc, how do you even take a 'world average? - Or exactly how do you measure 'occupational hazard'? (Isn't it like saying – my argument is 7 times more argumentative than average postors argument.

Could it be that, (and IMHO it is likely to be more than 99% truer) that the author of that report has some agenda and does not care to present facts?

Of course, Uranium Mining is serious undertaking and all hazards should be vigorously studied. After all Uranium's specific gravity is more than 19 metric tons per cubic meter, about 67% more than lead and 4 times more than ordinary rock so if one gets hit by it, it will hurt. Also it is heavy metal so if one eats it, his/her kidney and other organs may not like it and may get lead type poisoning. Same - if small U particles if breathed in, are not good for the lungs. Of course, the “ionizing radiation” of Uranium (Alpha rays) do not pass through a small tissue paper (let alone human skin) so that part is not dangerous – so I don't know why there are photographs in that pdf document you posted with kids faces and some vague reference to “Ionization radiations” of Uranium? Could it be that the author is not interested in anything scientific but just has some other agenda?

Please don't get me wrong. NO one (at least as much I can see) is trying to silence any whistle blower here... But at the same time we should not to a give free pass to some one who just want to peddle nonsensical stuff to scare others or has some other agenda while making excuse of trying to do “common good”.

I am sure you know, for example, there was organized campaign against, say polio vaccine, with baseless claims, yet many religious communities prevented children to be vaccinated. This is why one can not give blank check to anyone or any kind of reports in the garb of “even if 1% of this is true”.

CT's about Bhabha's or others death, would remain CT unless there is at least some evidence to show oterwise. Googling “Pak news papers” etc are not what one calls 'evidence'.

Regards.

negi · Post by **negi** » 07 Mar 2010 11:39

From SS's post from HINDU

Zerlina — was set up at what is now known as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

Now how many Jingos knew this ?

And yes I was completely oblivious to our N programme's French connection .

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Mar 2010 12:48

NRao wrote:
They don't care about their jobs.
Apparently the last few, based on those that were disposed earlier, did not care for their lives too!!!!

Unless of course each of them never knew that the others had written a letter to MMS (was it proper mail or email I wonder).

I will start scanning youtube in six months. Twitter is passe, just words. I want to see THE letters. I am sure ISI will get hold of them and put them on the net - for sure.

And, if youtube cannot be trusted to get to the bottom of these daths, then what is I am not sure.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Mar 2010 12:53

Jarita wrote:Couple of interesting theories going around since this has truly gone beyond mere conincidence

These folks were whistleblowers of sorts
- Nuke black market and we might have got embroiled
- Related to holes in Nuke deal

What is happening is bad stuff

meh, I'm aware of couple of recent cases of suicide in DAE institutes(probably included in your list ?) and both of them had their causes as a poisonous mix of personal and professional relations. nothing to do with what you allude. you have to understand that these people are human beings like any other, with the same failing and weaknesses.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 31#p830331

from what I know these incidents are not related in any way. India's nuclear infrastructure is biggish and employs a lot of people, only a handful of whom actually work on weapons. I hate to sound insensitive but an accidental death or a two per year would be at par with the national average. nothing more than coincidence.
of more concern IMHO would be the water contamination incident at IGCAR which hasn't been solved yet AFAIK. or even the BARC chemistry lab fire in which 2 research students died. but that's OT for this thread.

edit: added the bolded part.

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 07 Mar 2010 18:11

Gerard wrote:
nukavarapu wrote:Do we have any autonomous body (Not linked to DAE or BARC) to perform a security audit and certify Uranimum Mining and/or Nuclear plants? Do we have any standards that we follow in domestic nuclear industry?
The AERB

The link to AERB in the above post proved interesting. AERB seems to have a new Chairman now. I do not rmember seeing any news item, so far, about this change of gaurd.

Added later:
On searching for "ss bajaj" in Google, I got this AERB link, which proved interesting too

. . .
Shri Bajaj, a Mechanical Engineer, began his career with the Department of Atomic Energy in 1969 after obtaining training in Nuclear Engineering from 12th Batch of BARC Training School. He has been working in the area of nuclear reactor safety, and retired as `Distinguished Scientist' and Senior Executive Director (Safety) from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. in July 2007.
. . .

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 07 Mar 2010 18:37

France nuke meet heralds contracts war with the US

I believe this impacts to India too. Hence am posting in this thread.

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 07 Mar 2010 18:47

Clouds loom over nuclear liability bill

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 07 Mar 2010 19:01

Sanatanan wrote:France nuke meet heralds contracts war with the US

The US will fight this tooth and nail...

France, a world leader in adopting civilian nuclear energy technology to generate power, says it wants countries embarking on building nuclear reactors to have 360-degree access to civilian nuclear technology--including the rights to reprocess spent fuel.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 07 Mar 2010 23:26

Jarita wrote:Couple of interesting theories going around since this has truly gone beyond mere conincidence

These folks were whistleblowers of sorts
- Nuke black market and we might have got embroiled
- Related to holes in Nuke deal

What is happening is bad stuff

Jarita ji,

The young lady was a radio chemist.

She was recently engaged to be married.

She had sought and obtained a transfer to Calcutta to be with her husband after marriage.

She had about three, four years of service tops and wouldn't recognize a whistle if she saw one much less blow it.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 07 Mar 2010 23:30

Gerard wrote:
Jarita wrote:Posting tweets again
Yes, they might be bogus but we have to get to bottom of these deaths
Ah.. a conspiracy.

First we need .....<snip>
We need a gullible audience. Wonder where we can find people naive enough to believe this nonsense? The Internet perhaps?

Gerardji one important point here, which if (as, Nukavarapu put it, even 1%) true, and needs to be paid attention to is all those conspiracy theories are not just harmless fun, they could be (and in many cases found to be) inspired by mischievous and yes, sinister, motives. One of the civil defense points I remember from 1965 conflict was being told "अफवाएं मत फैलोवो" (don't spread rumors) because they can harm.

Here we have, members quoting tweets and quoting "goggling of pak news papers" as their source. According to these source, 9/11 was CIA/Mossad drama and 26/11 was done by GOI/RAW/CIA nexus... Kasab was/is innocent ... Most of the pakis still believe it and there are still tweets about Karkare's death - samjota express connections etc..

My point here, is , make no mistake, those guys who in the pretense of "helping investigation" keeps bringing up CT's NEED not be quite innocent .. and should not be allowed to hide behind a burqa of "but this could be true .. or I am merely pointing out what I heard in a tweet".

Recently the guy who did the shooting at Pentagon (and also the one who did Fort Hood shooting) had many posts about 9/11 CT's which his parents reported and I think others should have looked at it more seriously.

My recommendation to the readers here, don't be gullible and believe silly stuff and please do not use BRF to spread such nonsense. We have enough Zail Hamids already and they don't need any help.

To posters who post these, how difficult it is to check out rudimentary things - Check google scholar for publications and simple background check on what position(s)/degrees the person had to verify if indeed the said person was 'top nuclear scientist" or blindly repeat what one heard from a tweet. Please stop it.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 07 Mar 2010 23:43

Rahul M wrote:@ all, any progress on the drinking water contamination incident ?
TIA.

Latest update (but on the quiet) is that the issue has been successfully resolved. The gentleman in question was upset due to promotion issues. He was isolated and identified beyond all question.

Sacked without pension or benefits but no punishment due heavy union pressure. Name not revealed.

Now no one can even break wind without being photographed from many angles and timestamped. Unions are very unhappy. Management is very happy.

Next step is to break the multiple and toxic unions who compete with each other to roger the organisation.

Plenty cameras have sobered down the yahoos who used to while away their time.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Mar 2010 23:44

thanks chetak. good to know that.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 07 Mar 2010 23:52

Jarita wrote:OK.
Just a back of the envelope calculation (very back of the envelope )

Indias suicide rate is 11 per 100K and murder rate is 2.82 per 100K.
Assuming that these are a combination of the two the rate should be 13.82 or make it 14 for calculative ease
Plus remember that most of these occur in not so privilaged sections of Indian societies (Nuke scientists are reasonably well off)

At 12000 employees, it should extrapolate to ~1.7 suicides + murders.

(I have not incorporated sd or other variables such as income level etc, imposs to do a proper statistical analysis with existing data).

Does not 9 (or even 7) sound remarkably high?

Jairitaji - wrt to:

Does not 9 (or even 7) sound remarkably high?

I wouldn't know, but then I wouldn't know if x troops in Kashmir performing y number of rapes and z number of murders is too high or low. It's just that I am not too much interested and have no cause to believe that it needs investigating.. But you certainly think it is very important. So I ask:

Why do you stop at doing "doing back of the envelop" calculation onlee? What prevents you to pick up a book on statistics, (you can use Maple, or Mathematica, or any statistical calculator) and do a detail analysis using data on "privileged section" and any such factors.. Do a chi square analysis to and then publish the result to see if the number is remarkable high or not?

(While at it, could you please also verify and publish any supporting research about how these guys were 'top nuclear scientists" .. which whistles they blew, when and how many times and more importantly what they wrote to PM (see if PMO could validate those claims, etc)

I will wait for reply. Thanks.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 08 Mar 2010 01:27

Saw a discussion on Nuclear Power in CNN yesterday. There was a woman expert talking about how spent fuel still have 70-80-90% radioactivity within it. Reprocessing allows that radioactivity to be reduced to about 1 % broadly speaking.

She added to say that the US has not been reprocessing since the 70s. And that France and Japan are the leaders in this filed.

Hmmm,
I wonder why India is still eagerly seeking reprocessing tech from the US? Or is the US not allowing US origin fuel to be reprocessed? But the US is not an exporter of Nulcear fuel, so what gives?
Why is the Indo-US nuclear deal stuck on the re-processing thing, when the US dosn't hold that tech, and the French and others have it?

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Mar 2010 02:16

SSridhar wrote:Where Indian nuclear scientists cut their teeth . . .

Aha .. brings back lot of memories.. spent quite a bit of time (many summers) in Saclay and knew (close family/mentors/professors etc) a few Indian scientists closely -they moved there in mid/late 50's. My first visit there was in late sixties when we discussed (actually I learned, other person talked) about Thorium reactor technology. (I was encouraged and asked to go in that field and was told that Indians should be prepared to do all the work/research because no one else (others had plenty of Uranium, while India did not but India had plenty of Thorium) would be interested in developing this technology-- alas I did not remain focused and did not work in that field

)

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Mar 2010 02:28

Gagan - I don't know much about reprocessing technology but as perhaps you already know, "reprocessing " is a rather loose term and can consist of different technologies. (to get material for weapons or enhance the efficiency of the reactor fuel or prepare the waste for safe storage etc) .Some of pioneering (or at least very important work) in this field in US has been done by Indian origin physicists (Eg Roy and Nigam). Also true for French scientists (at least one I know is Indian origin/ Bhabha's student who has done some work in this field) .. Point is no one has a monopoly yet there is plenty to learn from US or France etc...

Hope this helps.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 08 Mar 2010 06:45

nukavarapu wrote:I have heard from few medics that the situation is similar, if not worse in Rawatbhata. That was the whole point on starting this discussion.

I would suggest you contact the AERB with your concerns.
Given the lack of credible evidence, idle speculation here is basically pointless.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Mar 2010 06:59

Nukavarapu Thanks for the reply, and clarification.

will reread your earlier posts but if you can again point to the reference(s) of reputed source(s) about the incident where we were 'simply lucky that there was no Core meltdown'
TIA.
I certainly do not know much about Rawatbhata or Jadughoda so may want to learn more. Meanwhile as Gerard said in above post, right action should be to contact the right people.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 08 Mar 2010 07:12

wrt to Gagan's query - relevant part from Mav's blog:

.... it is important to get the reprocessing rights codified because they will also apply to the large quantities of spent fuel sitting in India.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 09 Mar 2010 20:04

So the unsaid thing about re-processing is that it will allow fissile material to be obtained from the huge caches of spent fuel that India has on stock. And this is why the US is dragging its feet?

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 10 Mar 2010 10:17

Amber G. wrote:wrt to Gagan's query - relevant part from Mav's blog:

.... it is important to get the reprocessing rights codified because they will also apply to the large quantities of spent fuel sitting in India.

Only if the codified part mentions that reprocessing rights apply to all spent fuel, not just future spent fuel.

D Roy · Post by **D Roy** » 10 Mar 2010 20:23

Ahem,

The agreement for Tarapur I & II has long since expired.

India can reprocess the tarapur fuel anytime it wants. It is not doing so because India is a responsible state and does not want to take any ad hoc decision before the new reprocessing agreement is sewn up with the US.

But please be clear India has every legal, moral and other right to reprocess the spent fuel from Tarapur I & II.