After nightlong hectic parleys leading to signing of the much
longed for nuclear cooperation
pact, both Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and President George W Bush
walked out of the Hyderabad House to
address the joint press conference. It was
12.20 p.m., when Prime Minister Singh
asked: “Shall I start?” and President
Bush (said), “Please”. Then Prime Minister
Singh said: “We have made history
today”, while President Bush preferred
to say, “We have concluded an historic
agreement today”. The statements were
greeted with rapturous applause.
As the details trickled down slowly, it
became clear that India offered to separate 14 out of its 22 reactors as civilian
and place them under the international
safeguards perpetually; Fast Breeder
Test Reactor and the Prototype Fast
Breeder Reactor, and Bhabha Atomic
Research Center are out of safeguards;
CIRUS reactor shall be retired by 2010,
etc., against which the US will ensure supply of natural uranium from outside
by amending its own laws thereunder
and also making other Nuclear Supply
Group countries to fall in line. Robert
Blackwill, the former US Ambassador
to India, has aptly captured the significance
of the deal when he said: “It is a
historic day for Indo-US relations”.
Rhetoric apart, no one can better describe
the deal’s significance than what
Prime Minister Singh said to the Parliament
of course much before President
Bush’s visit: “As India strives to raise its
annual GDP growth rate from the
present 7-8% to over 10%, the energy
deficit will only worsen. This may not
only retard growth, it could also impose
an additional burden in terms of the increased
cost of importing oil and natural
gas, in a scenario of sharply rising hydrocarbon
prices. While we have substantial
reserves of coal, excessive dependence
on coal-based energy has its own implications for our environment.
Nuclear technology provides a plentiful
and non-polluting source of power to
meet our energy needs. However, to increase
the share of nuclear power in our
energy mix, we need to break out of the
confines imposed by inadequate reserves
of natural uranium, and by international
embargos that have constrained
our nuclear program for over
three decades”.
The deal, if it gets through the US
Congress, can simply “dismantle international
restrictions, which when achieved,
could unleash our scientific talent” by enabling
our scientists interact with research
institutions and scientists engaged
in advanced research on various
facets of nuclear power generation such as
fast reactors being developed based on
concepts such as gas-cooled fast reactor,
molten salt reactor, superficial watercooledreactor etc. Acceptance of India into
the Nuclear Group shall also enable our
scientists to participate in the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
being setup by the US, EU, Japan,
South Korea, Russia and China which in
itself will be a rich learning experience in
the cutting-edge technology besides keeping
them abreast with the global technological
developments. All this in turn
shall increase our “commercial potential
in the nuclear and related sectors”.
The significance of this agreement
can be gauzed from the fact that no
sooner it was inked, the US Department
of Energy-funded Fermi Labs, Chicago,
reported to be convincing India to take a
big lead in designing and building the
International Linear Collidor, a project
that would cost around $ 8 bn. As Dr.
Amit Roy, Director of the Inter-University
Accelerator Center, New Delhi
stated, “the country can be a key player
in this challenging sector where technology
is guarded”. Such exposures not only remove the isolation Indian scientists
have been under since 1974 but also
boost their confidence to think big and
use the so acquired knowledge in furthering
the cause of the institutions they are
representing—more so when the largest
accelerator in India is the pocked-sized
172 meter Indus at Indore Lab. |
