US-India nuke deal done

Team Bush, US industry, Indian Americans and pro-deal advocates of every stripe open the champagne

NEW YORK: Celebrations rippled through Capitol Hill and among legions of nuclear deal backers on this side of the Atlantic after the US Senate approved the landmark nuclear agreement on Wednesday night, overturning a 34-year ban on US nuclear trade with India.

“The accord will strengthen our global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs,” said President George Bush, basking in the afterglow of a rare foreign policy success. US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice is flying to Delhi on Saturday to formally sign the deal.

The agreement sailed through the Senate by an overwhelming 86-13 vote, marking a major step forward in US-India relations. That the deal was bipartisan was made clear with both US presidential candidates - John McCain and Barrack Obama - voting in favour of it.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh, who has invited a lot of bouquets and brickbats in recent months over the nuclear deal, will be pleased that a desperate ragtag attempt by several senators earlier to amend the agreement was rejected by a unanimous voice vote. The dissident senators wanted to insert a clause for scrapping the deal if India carried out further nuclear test explosions.

But no one in New Delhi should be naïve enough to presume that India can explode nuclear devices and not face the music. The nuclear deal cruised to the finish line, but not before secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had assured senators that a nuclear test by India will result in “most serious consequences.”

“If India resumes testing, the 123 agreement is over,” said senior Republican senator Richard Lugar, citing US laws and emphatic assurances from the state department.
Some US senators criticised the pact with a non-NPT member, saying it set a bad example for nuclear renegades North Korea and Iran.

“India gets to have their cake and eat it too,” harrumphed Democratic senator Jeff Bingaman, whose wrecking amendment was spiked in a voice vote.

Despite the stray grumbling, the solid congressional backing for the nuclear deal underscores bipartisan support for President Bush’s bold gambit to improve and reinvent frosty Cold War-plagued ties with India. The agreement, which has been over three years in the making, was also approved by the US house of representatives on Saturday by a 298-117 vote.

By championing the US-India nuclear energy deal, President Bush has brought New Delhi and Washington closer and placed a very large bet on the upside of a geo-strategic partnership with India. There’s more than just multi-billion-dollar nuclear reactor business up for grabs. The deal is seen as a proxy for Indo-American relations, and augurs well for future geostrategic, defense and economic ties.

India needs advanced US technology to best use thorium, a silvery metal that has been considered an alternative nuclear fuel to scarce and expensive uranium. Due to years of nuclear isolation and lack of domestic uranium, Indian scientists have worked hard at tapping the country’s abundant thorium reserves.  

“India represents one of the most important new nuclear markets and we look forward to leveraging our unique technological and advisory capabilities to enable India to become one of the leaders of the nuclear renaissance,” said Seth Grae, president and CEO of Thorium Power, a pioneer in developing non-proliferative nuclear fuel based on thorium.

“Some countries have a lot of uranium; others import all of the fuel material.
India has the ability to use its own thorium. I think that is very important,” said Grae. “The amount of nuclear power potentially that can be deployed in India could make it one of the largest nuclear energy markets in the world.”

With 17 plants in operation, India already has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power programme. But at present, nuclear energy provides only 2.5% of India’s electricity; the goal is for nuclear power to supply 25% of electricity by 2050.
India also signed a landmark atomic energy pact with France earlier this week. More will be in the works, with Russia and possibly Canada coming up later.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi congratulated prime minister manmohan Singh and said it was a landmark development that would contribute immensely in augmenting the much needed energy generation capacity for agriculture and in meeting India’s developmental objectives.