INDO-US NUCLEAR-DEAL

Recently, the former foreign secretary of India, Vijay Gokhale in his book claimed that the Left parties in India were influenced by China in their decision to oppose the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Although with the Indo-US nuclear agreement, India got a special Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) waiver, the progress of Greenfield projects is slow.

Greenfield Projects:

A greenfield project is one which is not constrained by prior work.
It is constructed on unused land where there is no need to remodel or demolish an existing structure. Such projects are often covered by engineers.

Important points:

The U.S. long considered India to be the leader of the non-aligned camp (Non- Aligned Movement) and held that it was tilting toward the USSR and, later, toward Russia.
India purchased most of its weapons from Russia, and it had a pseudo-socialist economic regime.
The U.S. tilted toward Pakistan throughout the Cold War and in the years that followed.
However, following the rise of China, the George W.Bush administration (US) decided to lure India into the West’s camp and draw on it to help contain China.
The US therefore offered India civil nuclear technology and access to uranium, the fuel it needed for nuclear power reactors.
The Indian government agreed to sign a 123 Agreement (or the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement).
The Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in 2008, that gave a fillip to the ties between the two nations, which since then have been on an upswing.

Indo-US nuclear deal:

A major aspect of the Indo-US nuclear deal was the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave a special waiver to India that enabled it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries.
It enabled India to separate its civilian and military programmes and placed its civilian nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
It refrains India from transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not have them and India should also support international efforts to limit their spread.

India’s requirements:

India’s own requirements from the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal have changed considerably.
Also India has also found much more comfort in its existing agreement with Russia’s Atomstroyexport.
Another issue relates to the cost that India is prepared to pay for nuclear energy through foreign collaborations.
Indo-French negotiations for six 1,650 MW European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in Maharashtra’s Jaitapur are delayed over the differences between the Department of Atomic Energy and French electricity utility EDF which pertains to arriving at the cost per unit.

Way Forward

Despite the historic nuclear deal (2008), civilian nuclear cooperation has not taken off. In international politics, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. In such a scenario India must continue to pursue its foreign policy of strategic hedging.
India-US relation remains critical for the shaping of world order in the 21st century. In order to realise the full potential of relations, the two governments must now strive to complete the unfinished agreements and set the course for a Comprehensive Strategic Global Partnership.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

Post Views: 37