Now just a look at what is this nuclear deal and why is there so much fuss about it....??
123 Agreement
* The legislation amends Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. It lets the US make a one-time exception for India to keep its nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
* Under the amendment, India must separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, and submit civilian facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).(India says 14 out of 22 reactors are civilian)
What are the objections to the agreement?
Nuclear deal has provoked controversies in both the countries.
- For Indian View : The Communist Party of India , the main opposition to the agreement fears the imperialistic policy of US. They also fear that this deal may tie our hands when it comes to national security as we cant act with sovereignty when it comes to tests but our PM M Singh has already refuted such claims.Also there is no mention of testing or detonation in this bilateral agreement
- International and US View : Critics call the terms of the agreement overly beneficial for India and lacking sufficient safeguards to prevent New Delhi from continuing to produce nuclear weapons. While India has pledged that any U.S. assistance to its civilian nuclear energy program will not benefit its nuclear weapons program, experts say India could use the imported nuclear fuel to feed its civilian energy program while diverting its own nuclear fuel to weapons production.
Why is the deal important to US
Energy is the biggest issue in 21st century .No doubt Power will be the biggest requirement for an economy to grow at high pace or lag behind .New Delhi, which relies on imported oil for some 70 per cent of its energy needs, says nuclear power will help feed its rapidly expanding economy. The energy break-up stands somewhat like this:
* Coal and Coal Products: 58%
* Crude Oil, Natural Gas Liquids and Natural Gas: 37%
* Nuclear Energy: 1.3%
* Hydro Electric: 2.6%
On the energy front India, to-date, relies heavily on fossil fuel.And just a result we have power shortage in most of the parts in India and it is a major deadlock in expansion of concerned industries (just a indication that how the stocks of some companies roared up with news of SP support for nuclear deal) Dedicated power would enable us to operate irrigation pumps on electricity and save money on diesel. Railways, which consumes one-third of total diesel, can run on electric power if we have uninterrupted power supply.Electricity is a major part of infrastructure commitment by the govt and our PM is doing the right thing by just promoting it by all possible means. Naturally our Prof APJ abul kalam has clearly come out in support of it. I was both surprised, and rather disappointed to see Brahma Chellaney, eminent Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, an independent, privately funded think-tank, and member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the Foreign Minister of India, write against the nuclear deal.Is it just a egoist crap???
Some argue that work is going on for our indigenous technology for thorium but again we are not sure how many years will it take and we will still require uranium to start it when our own reserves( 0.8%) are depleting too fast...
I just cant understand how some people like Left are so short sighted .Karat was asking for a similar deal with china.Now that is perfect example of making a national and economic issue though a political party ideology.After all how can they be pro-US.......Its same Left and fathers of BJP who were strongly against "Green Revolution" in India thinking it to be agricultural colonization of India by US.Had they been successful India would still have been a biggest begger in the world. Same was case when India was opening up its economy in last decade.I wonder some people just wanna live poor rather than going forward.
World is moving at high pace here and we have to run with it. China, Russia have signed billion-dollar nuclear deal in them .Iran,Pakistan and others are also looking for such opportunities... This deal to me has far more pros than cons..US may have their profit in maintaining power balance in Asia but in long run India is only going to benefit from it(Deal is initially for 40 years).Except India most of the world is looking at it as all big India benefiting deal with India getting better deal than other countries like China.India just need power so this deal is utmost requirement of India. Just a thing to be looked at will be how our PM Manmohan Singh presents their demands in deal.
I not only advocate Indo-US nuclear deal(which some are seeing as Indo-US political deal) but also such deals with Russia(like we are having for new reactors in Tamil Nadu) , France and other countries.After all i want to see India self sufficient in power and i wanna see electricity in every village 24*7.This will be the first step in improving infrastructure of villages which are feel still don't belong to new shining India.
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