Is the nuclear deal offered by US really beneficial to India?
This question has been raging since the deal became to public knowledge.
The left parties are oposed to the deal. Their reasoning and threats to pull out from supporting the government has irritated most thinking Indians.
Innate antipathy to leftists and doubts regarding their sincerety to the well being of this country has also clouded discussions on the subject.
Discounting the antics of the left and their inherent paranoia there is still a need to consider all aspects of the agreement, especially its long term implications.
Unfortunately the deal has been discussed passionately but not objectively.
Any information available in public domain has really been snatched from a reluctant government.
The very secrecy in government approach has raised hackles.What is it that the government is trying to hide and why? This is a question that has been asked by many.
Please also see ”India Being Lead Up the Garden Path by US”
Extracts from an article by Mr Ashok Parthasarathy in HT
T HE UNITED States concludes bilateral intergovernmental agreements on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in terms of the provisions of Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954. It has concluded such with 24 countries up till now.
However, it is only in the case of the 24th the agreement with India – that both the US government and the Congress here felt the need for the Agreement to be preceded and governed by a special India-specific US Act, the Hyde Act.
Unfortunately, it contains a number of restrictive, intrusive and extraneous clauses . A careful analysis reveals that 22 of the 41 pages contain at least one, and often more, restrictive clauses or clauses that are deeply intrusive of our sovereignty or security.
Some major examples include the clause that the US Government must further restrict transfers to India of technology and equipment to produce enriched uranium, plutonium and heavy water, take every possible measure to get India to stop production of nuclear weapon-making material by a specific date; take all necessary action to ensure India works actively in accordance with US policy to the early conclusion of a multi-lateral treaty on the cessation of production of weapons grade nuclear material.
If we undertake a nuclear test, the entire ‘deal’ will be cancelled. This amounts to getting us ‘covered’ by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that we have all along refused to sign as it will permanently cripple our vita1nuclear weapons programme.
The Act also ensures that IAEA safeguards on reactors imported from or fuelled by fuel from the US remain in force in perpetuity – even if the 123 is suspended or terminated. The 123 Agreement does not pledge or commit the US to a fuel supply guarantee over the life time of even US-origin nuclear reactors purchased by India. Quixotically, it is stated that these three crucially important technologies may be provided to us under the present Agreement, but only pursuant to an amendment to the Agreement made at an indeterminate future date.
This, despite transfer of technology and related production facilities for al1three critica1technologies being contained in the original US 123 Agreement with Japan and South Korea. And those transfers have also been operationalised.
The Agreement contains a highly arbitrary and one-sided article on ‘Termination and Cessation of Cooperation’. The Article states that “either party” (which in practice, really means the US) shall have the right to terminate this agreement on one year’s notice to the other party. T
he party giving such notice of termination shall provide the reasons for seeking such termination.
The second sentence regarding ‘reasons’ is absolutely global in its coverage. Normally, in such agreements, the reasons for terminating must be ‘internal’ to the agreement – i.e. something that one of the parties to the agreement has done or failed to do with reference to the obligations it has taken in the agreement.
The ‘global’ character of the formulation in this case is seriously adverse to India as, in principle, the US government could cite a vote by us in the UN against a US-sponsored resolution or any other such external reason as adequate ground for the US to terminate the agreement.
Clearly such a formulation gives the US unrestricted and a totally arbitrary discretion to terminate the 123 Agreement with India. Such a provision does not exist in the US 123 Agreements with China, Japan or South Korea.
All that we need from the nuclear deal is adequate quantities of uranium ore. However, it is unlikely we will get even that through the deal as all three top producers of uranium – Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan – have already announced that they will not supply any uranium to India unless New Delhi sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Ashok Parthasarathi was Science Advisor to Prirne Minister Indira Gandhi
Extracts
Australia Rules Out Uranium Sales to India
Rich Bowden
Sydney, Australia
January 20, 2008
The newly installed Australian Labor government has reversed a decision by the previous Howard administration to sell uranium yellowcake to India.
Canberra has said it will ban such sales to New Delhi until it agrees to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.The previous Liberal-National coalition had followed a commitment by the Bush administration that allowed the sale of the resource despite New Delhi’s refusal to sign the treaty.
Then-Prime Minister John Howard defended his government’s policy saying it would bring India more into the mainstream, forcing it to provide assurances over the disposal of the uranium. He continued with this policy even after lawmakers stalled the United States-India agreement in the Indian parliament.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told India’s nuclear envoy Shyam Saran this week that the Labor party had campaigned prior to the November election against nuclear proliferation.“We went into the election with a strong policy commitment we would not export uranium to nation states who are not members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” Smith said after the meeting with Saran.
“It’s a long standing commitment of the Australian Labor Party that we don’t authorize the export of uranium to countries who are not parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.“India is a nation state that is not a party to the nonproliferation treaty. I don’t think there’s any expectation in the international community that it will become a member,” he said.
The reversal of the Howard government’s decision has angered some of India’s media with the conservative Indian Express likening the Australian Labor Party’s left to India’s own “communists and peaceniks.
“The editorial said: “Just as our communists can’t be made to see reason, there is no way of explaining to Labor’s disarmament activists that the N.P.T. does not in any way prohibit Australia from selling uranium to India.
Like ‘anti-imperialism’ to our communists, ‘N.P.T.’ is a mantra for the Australian left.”
Australia has around 40 percent of the world’s known reserves of uranium and exports to 36 countries though the issue of nuclear exports has long been a controversial one in the country.
