BanglaBhoot
RETIRED TTA
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2007
- Messages
- 8,839
- Reaction score
- 5
- Country
- Location
By Simon Denyer and Rama Lakshmi, Updated: Saturday, July 16, 7:22 AM
NEW DELHI Hailed as the centerpiece of a new partnership between the worlds two most populous democracies, the U.S.-India nuclear deal has drifted dangerously since it was signed in 2008, analysts and former negotiators from both countries say.
The risk now is that other countries, particularly Russia and France, might benefit from all the hard work that the United States put into the deal.
The landmark agreement was supposed to allow the sale of nuclear reactors and fuel to India, even though the country has nuclear weapons but has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its advocates said it would bring tens of billions in business to the United States and create thousands of jobs, while also cementing a new partnership between the two nations to counter Chinas rise.
The deal itself, symbolic of a new partnership between the two countries, is not in any political danger. But American companies have not yet sold any reactors or equipment to India. American nuclear fuel firms, which face no legal or policy hurdles, have also not begun selling to India.
Personally propelled by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the deal overcame enormous opposition from the non-proliferation lobby in the United States and from Indians who said the conditions attached to the deal undermined the countrys sovereignty. But once the ink was dry and the hard work of implementation began, the momentum stalled.
Indias enthusiasm for nuclear power has been dented by the Fukushima accident, and by problems in finding available land to build reactors. Meanwhile, onerous conditions imposed by Indias parliament on suppliers of nuclear equipment have tilted the playing field away from private-sector American companies in favor of state-owned companies from Russia and France, analysts say.
You can see a possible outcome where the U.S. has expended most of the diplomatic capital, but companies in other countries are the main beneficiaries, said Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to visit India this week, the deals supporters hope she can reignite Indias enthusiasm to clear the remaining hurdles.
The Obama administration has done everything it can to implement the agreement, said Ambassador Nicholas Burns, an undersecretary of state in the Bush administration who spent three years negotiating the agreement. The problem from my perspective is on the Indian side. We havent seen the same degree of political commitment to follow it through.
Singh put his governments survival on the line to pass the deal. But in a country still scarred by the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984, he was powerless to prevent the passage last August of a law that would make suppliers of nuclear equipment liable for massive claims in the event of a nuclear accident during the reactors life.
That raises the risk of doing business in India to levels that American private-sector companies and their insurers cannot accept, but state-backed companies in Russia and France, with the much deeper pockets of their respective governments, might be able to live with. And it puts India far out of step with other countries, which put liability solely on plant operators.
Despite Indias intention to join an international treaty that would restrict liability claims on suppliers, U.S. companies and their insurers are worried that Indian law would still take precedent, and corporate officials are adamant that the law needs to be changed before they could do business here. The question is whether Singh, now on the defensive over corruption charges, can amend that legislation.
So while General Electric and U.S.-based, Japanese-owned Westinghouse Electric sit on the sidelines, Frances Areva and Russias Rosatom are already moving ahead in inking deals to build reactors in India.
The American things are moving slow, said Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of Indias Atomic Energy Commission, and a key negotiator of the nuclear agreement. But it is not Indias fault. We have done everything we are supposed to do.
A lopsided relationship
In a sense, the stalling of the nuclear deal is indicative of a broader problem with the U.S.-India relationship, Burns and other U.S. analysts said, with Washington making most of the concessions and India seeming less engaged.
President Obama has wooed India assiduously, for example supporting its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. But there was enormous disappointment in Washington when India did not shortlist any U.S. companies when deciding on a major overhaul of its fleet of fighter planes earlier this year, a deal worth tens of billions of dollars that could have heralded a new era of defense cooperation.
With its economy and its demand for energy growing rapidly, India wants to raise its nuclear power generating capacity from the current 5,000 megawatts a year to more than 60,000 megawatts by 2032.
But there is a growing sense this target might be ambitious.
In sites already set aside for American and French reactors, farmers have refused to sell their land. To allay the fears, Singh ordered a safety review of all existing reactors in April, hiked compensation money for farmland, and pledged to create an autonomous atomic regulatory board to oversee the plants.
Even so, about 250 farmers stormed out of a recent meeting with officials called to discuss compensation for land meant for American reactors in Meethi-Virdi, in western India.
It is fertile land, and they dont want to part with it, said Krishna Kant, an anti-nuclear campaigner in the area.Now, when I go to the villages to meet people, they say, Look what has happened in a rich country like Japan.
There are other hurdles, too. New Delhi has not yet given an assurance to Washington that Indian private companies will not re-transfer American nuclear technology and information to others, a requirement under U.S. law.
And before India can buy American and French reactors, New Delhi also has to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan. Those reactors use parts and technology from Japan, which cannot be supplied until Japan changes its law to allow nuclear trade with India.
The situation became more complicated last month when the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group in the Hague voted to bar access to sensitive uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology which can be used to make atomic bombs to countries that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 2008, the group gave an exemption to India, but this new decision was seen in New Delhi as a sign it was still not trusted.
Kakodkar called the latest NSG decision a betrayal and a huge setback to nuclear commerce.
The world needs to understand our sensitivities, Kakodkar said. We cannot be made a pariah all over again.
U.S.-India nuclear deal drifts dangerously - The Washington Post
NEW DELHI Hailed as the centerpiece of a new partnership between the worlds two most populous democracies, the U.S.-India nuclear deal has drifted dangerously since it was signed in 2008, analysts and former negotiators from both countries say.
The risk now is that other countries, particularly Russia and France, might benefit from all the hard work that the United States put into the deal.
The landmark agreement was supposed to allow the sale of nuclear reactors and fuel to India, even though the country has nuclear weapons but has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its advocates said it would bring tens of billions in business to the United States and create thousands of jobs, while also cementing a new partnership between the two nations to counter Chinas rise.
The deal itself, symbolic of a new partnership between the two countries, is not in any political danger. But American companies have not yet sold any reactors or equipment to India. American nuclear fuel firms, which face no legal or policy hurdles, have also not begun selling to India.
Personally propelled by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the deal overcame enormous opposition from the non-proliferation lobby in the United States and from Indians who said the conditions attached to the deal undermined the countrys sovereignty. But once the ink was dry and the hard work of implementation began, the momentum stalled.
Indias enthusiasm for nuclear power has been dented by the Fukushima accident, and by problems in finding available land to build reactors. Meanwhile, onerous conditions imposed by Indias parliament on suppliers of nuclear equipment have tilted the playing field away from private-sector American companies in favor of state-owned companies from Russia and France, analysts say.
You can see a possible outcome where the U.S. has expended most of the diplomatic capital, but companies in other countries are the main beneficiaries, said Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to visit India this week, the deals supporters hope she can reignite Indias enthusiasm to clear the remaining hurdles.
The Obama administration has done everything it can to implement the agreement, said Ambassador Nicholas Burns, an undersecretary of state in the Bush administration who spent three years negotiating the agreement. The problem from my perspective is on the Indian side. We havent seen the same degree of political commitment to follow it through.
Singh put his governments survival on the line to pass the deal. But in a country still scarred by the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984, he was powerless to prevent the passage last August of a law that would make suppliers of nuclear equipment liable for massive claims in the event of a nuclear accident during the reactors life.
That raises the risk of doing business in India to levels that American private-sector companies and their insurers cannot accept, but state-backed companies in Russia and France, with the much deeper pockets of their respective governments, might be able to live with. And it puts India far out of step with other countries, which put liability solely on plant operators.
Despite Indias intention to join an international treaty that would restrict liability claims on suppliers, U.S. companies and their insurers are worried that Indian law would still take precedent, and corporate officials are adamant that the law needs to be changed before they could do business here. The question is whether Singh, now on the defensive over corruption charges, can amend that legislation.
So while General Electric and U.S.-based, Japanese-owned Westinghouse Electric sit on the sidelines, Frances Areva and Russias Rosatom are already moving ahead in inking deals to build reactors in India.
The American things are moving slow, said Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of Indias Atomic Energy Commission, and a key negotiator of the nuclear agreement. But it is not Indias fault. We have done everything we are supposed to do.
A lopsided relationship
In a sense, the stalling of the nuclear deal is indicative of a broader problem with the U.S.-India relationship, Burns and other U.S. analysts said, with Washington making most of the concessions and India seeming less engaged.
President Obama has wooed India assiduously, for example supporting its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. But there was enormous disappointment in Washington when India did not shortlist any U.S. companies when deciding on a major overhaul of its fleet of fighter planes earlier this year, a deal worth tens of billions of dollars that could have heralded a new era of defense cooperation.
With its economy and its demand for energy growing rapidly, India wants to raise its nuclear power generating capacity from the current 5,000 megawatts a year to more than 60,000 megawatts by 2032.
But there is a growing sense this target might be ambitious.
In sites already set aside for American and French reactors, farmers have refused to sell their land. To allay the fears, Singh ordered a safety review of all existing reactors in April, hiked compensation money for farmland, and pledged to create an autonomous atomic regulatory board to oversee the plants.
Even so, about 250 farmers stormed out of a recent meeting with officials called to discuss compensation for land meant for American reactors in Meethi-Virdi, in western India.
It is fertile land, and they dont want to part with it, said Krishna Kant, an anti-nuclear campaigner in the area.Now, when I go to the villages to meet people, they say, Look what has happened in a rich country like Japan.
There are other hurdles, too. New Delhi has not yet given an assurance to Washington that Indian private companies will not re-transfer American nuclear technology and information to others, a requirement under U.S. law.
And before India can buy American and French reactors, New Delhi also has to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan. Those reactors use parts and technology from Japan, which cannot be supplied until Japan changes its law to allow nuclear trade with India.
The situation became more complicated last month when the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group in the Hague voted to bar access to sensitive uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology which can be used to make atomic bombs to countries that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 2008, the group gave an exemption to India, but this new decision was seen in New Delhi as a sign it was still not trusted.
Kakodkar called the latest NSG decision a betrayal and a huge setback to nuclear commerce.
The world needs to understand our sensitivities, Kakodkar said. We cannot be made a pariah all over again.
U.S.-India nuclear deal drifts dangerously - The Washington Post
