The author chooses to look at only portions of the 123 agreement which seem favorable to India. Unfortunately none of these portions are legally binding on the US. The US has no legal obligation to restore N supplies in case of disruption, no requirement to permit reprocessing. However all conditions unfavorable to India are legally binding. The IAEA safeguards are perpetual, even though the deal may be terminated for no reason at all. There is no arbitration provision, all material has to be handed over to the US whenever it wishes to take it back. At least one assertion of the Author is correct, india depends solely on trust and nothing in writing whereas all of India's committments are based on legal obligations, no trust here!
Thanks for a sound write up on the controversial deal after a long time.Yet there are many issues Mr.Vijay has not addressed or rather ignored.Yes,India's civil nuke program has lagged far behind in these 30 years.It is so easy to point out at what India planned but has not achieved.But what was achieved -nearly 16 power reactors the successful FBTR and the FBPR under construction.And all this was achieved entirely on own strengths,in total isolation.The question is:Should a nation always go looking for alms,deals and agreements to solve its basic issues of survival and welfare?Did US or Russia seek anyone's help when they went into depression and internal revolution?Did they not seek their own solutions,re-invigorate and reinvent themselves?Is it not the reason they are and will always as superpowers?Can you sign a deal which labels you as a subordinate,"receiver",while assigning to the other permanently the role of superpower, "giver".What is the technology that US will give India?Spent fuel reprocessing,enrichment,Fast Breeder tech?None at all.Only some light water reactors whose tech is all common knowledge in the corridors of BARC.Then why this chimera of a deal?Make it a plain commercial deal worth so many billion dollars in plain language.Also,having come so close to achieving generating commercial scale fuel from FBRs,can't we brace up and do something challenging?Like cutting short the 2nd stage and jump on to thorium cycle?Can we hope to be tech giants by 2020?
RE:Looking for piggy to ride the storm
by Chakravarthy Muralidhar on Sep 13, 2007 05:29 PM Permalink
There is one more thing I would like to add.India cannot sign a deal for the sake of the Indian diaspora settled in the promised land!If the expatriates feel let down just because they worked so hard for it,let them also sit down and list out what they did not do or should not have done which is the reason for so much opposition in India.Should Indians in India be permanently burdened with a power bill costing Rs.8 to 10 per unit just to keep the expatriates in good humour?Should India set aside Rs.6-8 lakh crores in order to honour the deal which 'promises' to help India add 40000 MW of nuke power capacity in the next 30 yrs?
RE:Looking for piggy to ride the storm
by Pradip Parekh on Sep 14, 2007 09:32 AM Permalink
oil is going to hit $100/barrel before the year is out, a 25pct rise in price.
We have seen many general and emotional articles on this deal till now. Same arguments were heard a few years back abt energy shortage etc etc and thousands of crores were spent which have now gone down the drain, thanks to pawar and gang in Enron. Power, if any, was then distributed free to farmers, thanks to congress. Not a single article has mentioned how many lakhs of crores will be paid for the reactors and to whom, how much for the uranium, what happens if the rates are hiked half way thru, and such critical issues. All that everyone is saying is that we have energy shortage, yes, no one denies that, but what are the possible solutions ? Any discussion on that or is the deal, which will give us 20,000 MW after 13 years, the only solution ? Anybody has any scientific answers ?
why is UPA government shying away from joint parliamentary committee to look into it? It is in the best interest for both US and India to have this thing behind us without any lingering suspicion. And this can be achieved only when NDA partners are brought on board.
I think the writer should refrain from calling the opposition names It doesent serve the purpose. I think the marority of the people who have written on this topic agree that there has to be provision of JPC on such a crucial issue and not just passed by a cigar club. I see no reason why the UPA is shying away from this if they have nothing to hide. The US congress and senate took over 18 months to draft it out then why rush India into signing it. The writer could see the whole issue more objectively rather than taking sides of his support. I do not fancy the BJP but they do have a vaid point on a JPC. Surly we dont want to miss the bus but at what cost is the question. If India as a strong nation stands upto to the pressure believe me there will always be another one coming our way. Nations need us as much as we need them.
Good Job! You certainly have scored brownie points and perhaps would not be served the Pink Slip any time soon.
It is still not quite clear though, as to why is there not enough Indian initiative to come of age and stop hanging on to coat tail that super genius like you seem to want to perpetuate.
the bogus Calcutta Communists, there will be very little option but to inhabit mud-huts and subsist on Mother Teresa's charity as the inhabitants of Calcutta do.
In most Indian cities, people routinely jump traffic lights as we do not believe in following rules whether for our own or others safety. As a result, India has the worst accidents record. We do not believe in preventive mainteance. We go to a mechanic mostly when our car breaks down, not as per prescribed schedule. The same casual attitude taken to hazardous plants casues disasters. The Bhopal gas tragedy happened in India because some indians including the management of the said plant took a casual attitude. Of course the plant happened to be owned by an MNC and so one could conviniently pass the blame. Of course, the nuclear deal is just to open the legal gates for nuclear eqpt and fuel suppliers. But just because nuclear power will become accessible does not mean that it will be economically viable in the immediate future. YEs, if we keep on using high cost nuclear power, in some distant future some innoation would bring down the cost. Till then, users will be paying the high cost for more R&D. That is what these America ncompanies want. Indians t opay for their R&D efforts.
Nuclear power like other alternative power sources have not become popular against conventional power plants for the same reasons. Economical viability is no.1. All seem to be arguing only about the alliance of US with India, etc. Yes that is reqd. but we still need to ask the cost of one unit of nuclear power. That will depend on fuel cost, processing cost, power plant equipment cost, etc. Yes, American companies are more than willing to supply their plants to India, but being an engineer who has worked in plants and been part of negotiating teams for imported equipment, I knw that American equipment are the costliest. American supplies are costliest. I had once tried to work out basic economics of an alternative power plant from American costs. It came out as unviable. Who will pay more than Rs 7-8 per unit of power in India. Second issue with nuclear power is safety. As we have few nuclear power plants run as per best practices, we are safe. But as we will start having more and more nuclear plants we will have higherr chances of disaster. WHY?? Becaause of India temperament. I have worked in Industry. Indians have a very casual attitude. Go to any factory, you will find that even engineers do not wear helments provided to them. riggers would not tie safety belts provided to them neither would they wear gloves provided to them. Indiscipline is high. They even refuse to wear chemical suits working in hazardous environment. In case of spillage, they would rather face the ch
