The India US Nuclear Pact has been operationalized.
Showing posts with label India US Nuclear Deal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India US Nuclear Deal. Show all posts
12.10.08
2.10.08
Nuclear Deal Mubarak !
After 38 months of negotiations, the US Senate has approved the Nuclear Deal.This is truly a historic moment which coincides with Gandhiji's birth anniversary as well as Eid celebrations in many parts of India.
Final approval came as the Senate voted to ratify the deal 86-13, sending the legislation to Bush to sign into law. The Senate's move came just ahead of an expected trip to India this weekend by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The House of Representatives has already approved the pact, which the Bush administration believes will secure a strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy, help India meet its rising energy demand and open up a market worth billions. But critics say the deal does grave damage to global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, by letting India import nuclear fuel and technology even though it has tested nuclear weapons and never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India has a yawning energy deficit, and the accord opens up this market worth billions to American companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp. Rice spent much of the past month in an all-out effort to persuade Congress to approve the pact, which the Bush administration says will transform the US-India relationship. Bush wanted the deal approved before leaving office in January; Congress is expected to adjourn soon for elections. The accord enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, where many lawmakers favored it as a way to create jobs in the US civil nuclear industry while cultivating the small but affluent Indian-American community. Critics said the deal was deeply unwise, overturning decades of US policy of refusing to sell nuclear technology to nations lacking full safeguards against that technology's diversion into nuclear weapons programs. "Why are we rushing to pass this gravely flawed agreement?" demanded Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, before the vote. There was nothing in it, he said, to prevent India from resuming nuclear testing. India, which first detonated a nuclear device in 1974, last tested in 1998. The deal would also weaken US efforts to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, Harkin said. He said Indian entities already had sold sensitive missile technologies to Iran, which the Bush administration suspects is pursuing a nuclear bomb. But supporters said they expected India to move quickly to negotiate a new safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. "The benefits of this pact are designed to be a lasting incentive for India to abstain from further nuclear weapons tests and to cooperate closely with the United States in stopping proliferation," Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar said. Before approving the pact, the Senate rejected an amendment by Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, both Democrats, making clear that another Indian nuclear test would lead to termination of the deal. Lugar argued the amendment was unnecessary, saying India had been warned repeatedly that the consequences of another test would be "dire": US nuclear trade would be cut off. The deal could open up around $27 billion in investments in 18-20 nuclear plants in India over the next 15 years, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry. But there is global competition. France announced on Tuesday that it had signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with India, and Russia is already building two 1,000 megawatt reactors in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Local media say India's monopoly Nuclear Power Corp has tentatively picked four suppliers, including Westinghouse Electric and France's Areva, for planned new projects. India is also reported to be negotiating with General Electric, Japan's Hitachi Ltd and Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom.
Final approval came as the Senate voted to ratify the deal 86-13, sending the legislation to Bush to sign into law. The Senate's move came just ahead of an expected trip to India this weekend by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The House of Representatives has already approved the pact, which the Bush administration believes will secure a strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy, help India meet its rising energy demand and open up a market worth billions. But critics say the deal does grave damage to global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, by letting India import nuclear fuel and technology even though it has tested nuclear weapons and never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India has a yawning energy deficit, and the accord opens up this market worth billions to American companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp. Rice spent much of the past month in an all-out effort to persuade Congress to approve the pact, which the Bush administration says will transform the US-India relationship. Bush wanted the deal approved before leaving office in January; Congress is expected to adjourn soon for elections. The accord enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, where many lawmakers favored it as a way to create jobs in the US civil nuclear industry while cultivating the small but affluent Indian-American community. Critics said the deal was deeply unwise, overturning decades of US policy of refusing to sell nuclear technology to nations lacking full safeguards against that technology's diversion into nuclear weapons programs. "Why are we rushing to pass this gravely flawed agreement?" demanded Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, before the vote. There was nothing in it, he said, to prevent India from resuming nuclear testing. India, which first detonated a nuclear device in 1974, last tested in 1998. The deal would also weaken US efforts to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, Harkin said. He said Indian entities already had sold sensitive missile technologies to Iran, which the Bush administration suspects is pursuing a nuclear bomb. But supporters said they expected India to move quickly to negotiate a new safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. "The benefits of this pact are designed to be a lasting incentive for India to abstain from further nuclear weapons tests and to cooperate closely with the United States in stopping proliferation," Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar said. Before approving the pact, the Senate rejected an amendment by Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, both Democrats, making clear that another Indian nuclear test would lead to termination of the deal. Lugar argued the amendment was unnecessary, saying India had been warned repeatedly that the consequences of another test would be "dire": US nuclear trade would be cut off. The deal could open up around $27 billion in investments in 18-20 nuclear plants in India over the next 15 years, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry. But there is global competition. France announced on Tuesday that it had signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with India, and Russia is already building two 1,000 megawatt reactors in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Local media say India's monopoly Nuclear Power Corp has tentatively picked four suppliers, including Westinghouse Electric and France's Areva, for planned new projects. India is also reported to be negotiating with General Electric, Japan's Hitachi Ltd and Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom.
27.9.08
The Indo - US Nuclear Deal crawls ahead
US and India are locked in a strategic cinch of unprecedented warmth and depth despite residual hiccups over the civilian nuclear deal, remarks by US President George Bush and PM Manmohan Singh after their White House meeting and the official briefing reveal.In pledging “a good, strong strategic relationship” (Bush) and recognising a “massive... enormous transformation” (Manmohan), both leaders threw away any vestige of pretence that ties between the two countries were more symbolic than strategic in nature. In one of the most telling disclosures, Bush said he appreciated Singh’s advice on a range of matters, in particular on the Indian neighbourhood, and “it helps me formulate policy”.The reference clearly was to Afghanistan-Pakistan-terrorism issues, and officials who briefed the media later confirmed that the two sides spent significant time on a subject that has exercised the Bush administration of late. Vice-President Dick Cheney, who drives US policy on the subject, was present at the meetings, amid reports of the first clashes between US and Pakistani forces.Foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon referred all questions about what Indian inputs Washington sought in Afghanistan, including boots on the ground, to the White House — which did not comment immediately — while asserting that “we don’t have a military presence (in Afghanistan) and we don’t intend to change that”.But India’s strong developmental and cultural agenda in Afghanistan is a subject of immense interest in Washington, and this, along with intelligence cooperation, was part of the conversation. India has at least 4,000 non-military personnel in Afghanistan and has pledged $1.2 billion in aid. Both the US and Indian national security advisors, Stephen Hadley and M K Narayanan, sat in on the meetings and were present at the private working dinner.While all this was going on, the vote on the nuclear agreement between the two sides meandered along in Congress, buried under the weight of the debate on the economic crisis and the obstructionist tactics of a few Democratic lawmakers. The Bush administration had appeared confident that the deal was close to being adopted, and that raised the prospect of a formal signing of the agreement between the two sides during secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s visit to India next month.Foreign secretary Menon acknowledged that the preoccupation with the financial crisis may come in the way of Congressional approval of the deal. “There is bipartisan support but the fact is that, they do have other things to do. So, it is really a function of their own process. I don’t think it is a lack of will or support,” he told reporters. But uncertainty deepened on Friday morning in the absence of any indication to suggest that the approval was coming on the last day of the session of the Congress or that the lawmakers might agree to sit for a week more before breaking for presidential polls.The day’s agenda listed India-US nuclear deal as the third item to be discussed after the economic stimulus plan and Iran sanctions. India will open two new consulates in the US in Seattle and Atlanta, foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon announced .
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