Belligerent: {adjective_bel...ij…er.ent}
Cambridge: 1.disapproving wishing to fight or argue.
Watch out, Lee is in belligerent mood.
Belligerent person
Belligerent gesture
2. Specialized fighting a war
Belligerent countries are having difficulties in funding the war!
-----Belligerence or Belligerency {noun} Disapproving
I can’t stand his belligerence (his wish to argue with people all the time).
----Belligerently {Adverb} disapproving
{Belligerent half -century of Imran Nazir helped Pakistan to get into the finals}
Monday, September 24, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
duress
Definition
duress noun [U] FORMAL
threats used to force a person to do something
:He claimed that he signed the confession under duress.
duress noun [U] FORMAL
threats used to force a person to do something
:He claimed that he signed the confession under duress.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
access to farming knowledge
COLUMN
Access to farming knowledge
JAYATI GHOSH
Extension workers continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful.
PRAKASH/AP On the outskirts of Bhopal. The huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. A file picture.
IT is increasingly recognised that one factor in the persistent agrarian crisis is the proliferation of cultivation techniques that are based on inadequate and faulty knowledge being provided to farmers. While the current agrarian crisis in India is hydra-headed and has many causes, the apparent collapse of public extension services has certainly had a role to play. The resulting problems of undesirable or inappropriate choice of cropping pattern, spurious input provision and unnecessary, excessive or improper input use have dramatically added to the costs and risks of cultivation.
The current “hotspots” where farmers’ distress is most acute – for instance, in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh – are all areas where farmers have been encouraged to shift to new crops based on “new” purchased inputs without being given enough information either on the required cultivation techniques or on the feasibility of such cultivation in the face of changing input and output prices.
It is common to put most of the blame for this on the inadequacies of the public agricultural extension system, which has definitely deteriorated in the past 15 years compared with the 1970s when it was first set up in a systematic way. However, the fault lies not with the extension officers themselves but with Central and State governments, which have systematically reduced public expenditure in this important area over the past decade and half and reduced both the scope and capacity of this system in general.
Extension officers are often inadequately trained to start with and, in almost all States, do not receive continuous training that would keep them up to date with new developments. Their numbers have been reduced to the point that one officer has to cover a vast area and a large population, which is typically not feasible. They are not provided with the minimum requirements of effective functioning, such as transport vehicles and cell phones to enable communication.
It is hardly surprising, in this context, that so few farmers access them for new technology and fewer believe what these hapless extension officers are able to tell them. In many States, it has become evident that new knowledge disseminated by input dealers, who may have a vested interest in promoting particular inputs, has become a source of problems instead of improving cultivation practices. For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, the State government’s Commission of Farmers’ Welfare found in 2004 that unviable or undesirable practices (such as excessive use of chemical pesticide or improper use of certain new transgenic seeds) were actually promoted by input dealers.
A National Sample Survey (NSS) in 2003 found that the majority of farmers did not access any source of information on modern technology in the previous year. Only around 40 per cent of the sample survey accessed such information, and it came dominantly from other farmers, input dealers, radio and television (which includes advertisements by private input suppliers).
A negligible role was played by public agencies. Taken together, the public agencies that are meant to deliver knowledge to farmers – that is, agricultural extension workers, government demonstrations and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras – had been accessed by only 8.4 per cent of the farmers surveyed. By contrast, other farmers were the largest source of information, with around 17 per cent getting information from them, followed closely by input dealers, who had been accessed by 13 per cent.
Further, only 62 per cent of farmers had actually used the information provided by public agricultural extension workers, compared with 82 per cent for input dealers and 85 per cent for other farmers. In States such as Punjab and Bihar, extension officers’ advice was acted upon less than 30 per cent of the time compared with more than 80 per cent for input dealers. In many States, even radio, television and newspapers – advertisements and all – were relied upon more than extension officers.
While the lack of investment in public extension services is a major reason for this, it is also true that the way in which agricultural extension has been designed in India has contributed to the lack of effectiveness of the existing services. There have been many criticisms of the way the public extension system works. It is seen to be driven by technological determinism in a very liner top-down approach, rather than being flexible, allowing for continuous feedback from and interaction with farmers themselves. It has generally functioned as subservient to the agricultural research system, which itself is less designed to respond to local farmers’ changing priorities and more attuned to international developments. This makes the system less responsive and does not allow it to adapt easily to local situations.
As a result, extension workers are often not aware of the actual problems facing farmers or their changing needs and continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful. Many have argued that the most significant drawback of the current system is the implicit assumption that the farmer knows nothing.
So the huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers, as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. There are several studies citing cases where the departure from such traditional knowledge has created not only greater cultivation risk but also less sustainable practices. These apparent lacunae in the public system have unfortunately left the field open to private dealers, many of whom are interested parties and therefore may not provide the best or most useful information to farmers.
Private input dealers have a basic conflict of interest when it comes to agricultural extension because they are concerned mainly with selling more of their stocks. There are many reports of input dealers providing their otherwise unsold and inferior quality inputs along with their suggestions to the farmers. (This is why in the NSS around half of the farmers reported that the information they received was not good.)
So, along with the other measures that are directed towards the immediate cultivation crisis, such as regulating inputs and providing some support for crop prices, it is essential also to address the issue of ensuring access to the latest and the most relevant knowledge to farmers.
This clearly requires a substantial infusion of additional resources. But it may be just as important to undertake a drastic overhaul of the extension system itself to ensure that it actually listens to farmers.
Access to farming knowledge
JAYATI GHOSH
Extension workers continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful.
PRAKASH/AP On the outskirts of Bhopal. The huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. A file picture.
IT is increasingly recognised that one factor in the persistent agrarian crisis is the proliferation of cultivation techniques that are based on inadequate and faulty knowledge being provided to farmers. While the current agrarian crisis in India is hydra-headed and has many causes, the apparent collapse of public extension services has certainly had a role to play. The resulting problems of undesirable or inappropriate choice of cropping pattern, spurious input provision and unnecessary, excessive or improper input use have dramatically added to the costs and risks of cultivation.
The current “hotspots” where farmers’ distress is most acute – for instance, in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh – are all areas where farmers have been encouraged to shift to new crops based on “new” purchased inputs without being given enough information either on the required cultivation techniques or on the feasibility of such cultivation in the face of changing input and output prices.
It is common to put most of the blame for this on the inadequacies of the public agricultural extension system, which has definitely deteriorated in the past 15 years compared with the 1970s when it was first set up in a systematic way. However, the fault lies not with the extension officers themselves but with Central and State governments, which have systematically reduced public expenditure in this important area over the past decade and half and reduced both the scope and capacity of this system in general.
Extension officers are often inadequately trained to start with and, in almost all States, do not receive continuous training that would keep them up to date with new developments. Their numbers have been reduced to the point that one officer has to cover a vast area and a large population, which is typically not feasible. They are not provided with the minimum requirements of effective functioning, such as transport vehicles and cell phones to enable communication.
It is hardly surprising, in this context, that so few farmers access them for new technology and fewer believe what these hapless extension officers are able to tell them. In many States, it has become evident that new knowledge disseminated by input dealers, who may have a vested interest in promoting particular inputs, has become a source of problems instead of improving cultivation practices. For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, the State government’s Commission of Farmers’ Welfare found in 2004 that unviable or undesirable practices (such as excessive use of chemical pesticide or improper use of certain new transgenic seeds) were actually promoted by input dealers.
A National Sample Survey (NSS) in 2003 found that the majority of farmers did not access any source of information on modern technology in the previous year. Only around 40 per cent of the sample survey accessed such information, and it came dominantly from other farmers, input dealers, radio and television (which includes advertisements by private input suppliers).
A negligible role was played by public agencies. Taken together, the public agencies that are meant to deliver knowledge to farmers – that is, agricultural extension workers, government demonstrations and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras – had been accessed by only 8.4 per cent of the farmers surveyed. By contrast, other farmers were the largest source of information, with around 17 per cent getting information from them, followed closely by input dealers, who had been accessed by 13 per cent.
Further, only 62 per cent of farmers had actually used the information provided by public agricultural extension workers, compared with 82 per cent for input dealers and 85 per cent for other farmers. In States such as Punjab and Bihar, extension officers’ advice was acted upon less than 30 per cent of the time compared with more than 80 per cent for input dealers. In many States, even radio, television and newspapers – advertisements and all – were relied upon more than extension officers.
While the lack of investment in public extension services is a major reason for this, it is also true that the way in which agricultural extension has been designed in India has contributed to the lack of effectiveness of the existing services. There have been many criticisms of the way the public extension system works. It is seen to be driven by technological determinism in a very liner top-down approach, rather than being flexible, allowing for continuous feedback from and interaction with farmers themselves. It has generally functioned as subservient to the agricultural research system, which itself is less designed to respond to local farmers’ changing priorities and more attuned to international developments. This makes the system less responsive and does not allow it to adapt easily to local situations.
As a result, extension workers are often not aware of the actual problems facing farmers or their changing needs and continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful. Many have argued that the most significant drawback of the current system is the implicit assumption that the farmer knows nothing.
So the huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers, as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. There are several studies citing cases where the departure from such traditional knowledge has created not only greater cultivation risk but also less sustainable practices. These apparent lacunae in the public system have unfortunately left the field open to private dealers, many of whom are interested parties and therefore may not provide the best or most useful information to farmers.
Private input dealers have a basic conflict of interest when it comes to agricultural extension because they are concerned mainly with selling more of their stocks. There are many reports of input dealers providing their otherwise unsold and inferior quality inputs along with their suggestions to the farmers. (This is why in the NSS around half of the farmers reported that the information they received was not good.)
So, along with the other measures that are directed towards the immediate cultivation crisis, such as regulating inputs and providing some support for crop prices, it is essential also to address the issue of ensuring access to the latest and the most relevant knowledge to farmers.
This clearly requires a substantial infusion of additional resources. But it may be just as important to undertake a drastic overhaul of the extension system itself to ensure that it actually listens to farmers.
access to farming knowledge
COLUMN
Access to farming knowledge
JAYATI GHOSH
Extension workers continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful.
PRAKASH/AP On the outskirts of Bhopal. The huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. A file picture.
IT is increasingly recognised that one factor in the persistent agrarian crisis is the proliferation of cultivation techniques that are based on inadequate and faulty knowledge being provided to farmers. While the current agrarian crisis in India is hydra-headed and has many causes, the apparent collapse of public extension services has certainly had a role to play. The resulting problems of undesirable or inappropriate choice of cropping pattern, spurious input provision and unnecessary, excessive or improper input use have dramatically added to the costs and risks of cultivation.
The current “hotspots” where farmers’ distress is most acute – for instance, in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh – are all areas where farmers have been encouraged to shift to new crops based on “new” purchased inputs without being given enough information either on the required cultivation techniques or on the feasibility of such cultivation in the face of changing input and output prices.
It is common to put most of the blame for this on the inadequacies of the public agricultural extension system, which has definitely deteriorated in the past 15 years compared with the 1970s when it was first set up in a systematic way. However, the fault lies not with the extension officers themselves but with Central and State governments, which have systematically reduced public expenditure in this important area over the past decade and half and reduced both the scope and capacity of this system in general.
Extension officers are often inadequately trained to start with and, in almost all States, do not receive continuous training that would keep them up to date with new developments. Their numbers have been reduced to the point that one officer has to cover a vast area and a large population, which is typically not feasible. They are not provided with the minimum requirements of effective functioning, such as transport vehicles and cell phones to enable communication.
It is hardly surprising, in this context, that so few farmers access them for new technology and fewer believe what these hapless extension officers are able to tell them. In many States, it has become evident that new knowledge disseminated by input dealers, who may have a vested interest in promoting particular inputs, has become a source of problems instead of improving cultivation practices. For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, the State government’s Commission of Farmers’ Welfare found in 2004 that unviable or undesirable practices (such as excessive use of chemical pesticide or improper use of certain new transgenic seeds) were actually promoted by input dealers.
A National Sample Survey (NSS) in 2003 found that the majority of farmers did not access any source of information on modern technology in the previous year. Only around 40 per cent of the sample survey accessed such information, and it came dominantly from other farmers, input dealers, radio and television (which includes advertisements by private input suppliers).
A negligible role was played by public agencies. Taken together, the public agencies that are meant to deliver knowledge to farmers – that is, agricultural extension workers, government demonstrations and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras – had been accessed by only 8.4 per cent of the farmers surveyed. By contrast, other farmers were the largest source of information, with around 17 per cent getting information from them, followed closely by input dealers, who had been accessed by 13 per cent.
Further, only 62 per cent of farmers had actually used the information provided by public agricultural extension workers, compared with 82 per cent for input dealers and 85 per cent for other farmers. In States such as Punjab and Bihar, extension officers’ advice was acted upon less than 30 per cent of the time compared with more than 80 per cent for input dealers. In many States, even radio, television and newspapers – advertisements and all – were relied upon more than extension officers.
While the lack of investment in public extension services is a major reason for this, it is also true that the way in which agricultural extension has been designed in India has contributed to the lack of effectiveness of the existing services. There have been many criticisms of the way the public extension system works. It is seen to be driven by technological determinism in a very liner top-down approach, rather than being flexible, allowing for continuous feedback from and interaction with farmers themselves. It has generally functioned as subservient to the agricultural research system, which itself is less designed to respond to local farmers’ changing priorities and more attuned to international developments. This makes the system less responsive and does not allow it to adapt easily to local situations.
As a result, extension workers are often not aware of the actual problems facing farmers or their changing needs and continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful. Many have argued that the most significant drawback of the current system is the implicit assumption that the farmer knows nothing.
So the huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers, as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. There are several studies citing cases where the departure from such traditional knowledge has created not only greater cultivation risk but also less sustainable practices. These apparent lacunae in the public system have unfortunately left the field open to private dealers, many of whom are interested parties and therefore may not provide the best or most useful information to farmers.
Private input dealers have a basic conflict of interest when it comes to agricultural extension because they are concerned mainly with selling more of their stocks. There are many reports of input dealers providing their otherwise unsold and inferior quality inputs along with their suggestions to the farmers. (This is why in the NSS around half of the farmers reported that the information they received was not good.)
So, along with the other measures that are directed towards the immediate cultivation crisis, such as regulating inputs and providing some support for crop prices, it is essential also to address the issue of ensuring access to the latest and the most relevant knowledge to farmers.
This clearly requires a substantial infusion of additional resources. But it may be just as important to undertake a drastic overhaul of the extension system itself to ensure that it actually listens to farmers.
Access to farming knowledge
JAYATI GHOSH
Extension workers continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful.
PRAKASH/AP On the outskirts of Bhopal. The huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. A file picture.
IT is increasingly recognised that one factor in the persistent agrarian crisis is the proliferation of cultivation techniques that are based on inadequate and faulty knowledge being provided to farmers. While the current agrarian crisis in India is hydra-headed and has many causes, the apparent collapse of public extension services has certainly had a role to play. The resulting problems of undesirable or inappropriate choice of cropping pattern, spurious input provision and unnecessary, excessive or improper input use have dramatically added to the costs and risks of cultivation.
The current “hotspots” where farmers’ distress is most acute – for instance, in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh – are all areas where farmers have been encouraged to shift to new crops based on “new” purchased inputs without being given enough information either on the required cultivation techniques or on the feasibility of such cultivation in the face of changing input and output prices.
It is common to put most of the blame for this on the inadequacies of the public agricultural extension system, which has definitely deteriorated in the past 15 years compared with the 1970s when it was first set up in a systematic way. However, the fault lies not with the extension officers themselves but with Central and State governments, which have systematically reduced public expenditure in this important area over the past decade and half and reduced both the scope and capacity of this system in general.
Extension officers are often inadequately trained to start with and, in almost all States, do not receive continuous training that would keep them up to date with new developments. Their numbers have been reduced to the point that one officer has to cover a vast area and a large population, which is typically not feasible. They are not provided with the minimum requirements of effective functioning, such as transport vehicles and cell phones to enable communication.
It is hardly surprising, in this context, that so few farmers access them for new technology and fewer believe what these hapless extension officers are able to tell them. In many States, it has become evident that new knowledge disseminated by input dealers, who may have a vested interest in promoting particular inputs, has become a source of problems instead of improving cultivation practices. For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, the State government’s Commission of Farmers’ Welfare found in 2004 that unviable or undesirable practices (such as excessive use of chemical pesticide or improper use of certain new transgenic seeds) were actually promoted by input dealers.
A National Sample Survey (NSS) in 2003 found that the majority of farmers did not access any source of information on modern technology in the previous year. Only around 40 per cent of the sample survey accessed such information, and it came dominantly from other farmers, input dealers, radio and television (which includes advertisements by private input suppliers).
A negligible role was played by public agencies. Taken together, the public agencies that are meant to deliver knowledge to farmers – that is, agricultural extension workers, government demonstrations and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras – had been accessed by only 8.4 per cent of the farmers surveyed. By contrast, other farmers were the largest source of information, with around 17 per cent getting information from them, followed closely by input dealers, who had been accessed by 13 per cent.
Further, only 62 per cent of farmers had actually used the information provided by public agricultural extension workers, compared with 82 per cent for input dealers and 85 per cent for other farmers. In States such as Punjab and Bihar, extension officers’ advice was acted upon less than 30 per cent of the time compared with more than 80 per cent for input dealers. In many States, even radio, television and newspapers – advertisements and all – were relied upon more than extension officers.
While the lack of investment in public extension services is a major reason for this, it is also true that the way in which agricultural extension has been designed in India has contributed to the lack of effectiveness of the existing services. There have been many criticisms of the way the public extension system works. It is seen to be driven by technological determinism in a very liner top-down approach, rather than being flexible, allowing for continuous feedback from and interaction with farmers themselves. It has generally functioned as subservient to the agricultural research system, which itself is less designed to respond to local farmers’ changing priorities and more attuned to international developments. This makes the system less responsive and does not allow it to adapt easily to local situations.
As a result, extension workers are often not aware of the actual problems facing farmers or their changing needs and continue to disseminate knowledge about practices that may be not only irrelevant but even harmful. Many have argued that the most significant drawback of the current system is the implicit assumption that the farmer knows nothing.
So the huge wealth of traditional knowledge is often ignored by policymakers, as is the remarkable ability of farmers to adapt and develop cultivation practices according to their own specific situation and experience. There are several studies citing cases where the departure from such traditional knowledge has created not only greater cultivation risk but also less sustainable practices. These apparent lacunae in the public system have unfortunately left the field open to private dealers, many of whom are interested parties and therefore may not provide the best or most useful information to farmers.
Private input dealers have a basic conflict of interest when it comes to agricultural extension because they are concerned mainly with selling more of their stocks. There are many reports of input dealers providing their otherwise unsold and inferior quality inputs along with their suggestions to the farmers. (This is why in the NSS around half of the farmers reported that the information they received was not good.)
So, along with the other measures that are directed towards the immediate cultivation crisis, such as regulating inputs and providing some support for crop prices, it is essential also to address the issue of ensuring access to the latest and the most relevant knowledge to farmers.
This clearly requires a substantial infusion of additional resources. But it may be just as important to undertake a drastic overhaul of the extension system itself to ensure that it actually listens to farmers.
Monday, September 17, 2007
tranquillity
4. Tranquillity: {adverb}{pronounce: tran-quil-ity-} meaning: hindi{freedom from disturbance, peace...shanti, nistabdta} english{to make calm and peaceful} cambridge: calm and peaceful and without noise, violence, anxiety etc..
etymology: tranquil, tranquillity, tranquillize, tranquilisation,tranquillizer
usage:
1. We will be able to hear the sweet chirping of birds in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
{{{{ADVANCED}}}} cambridge....
tranquil: adjective... calm and peaceful and without noise, violence, anxiety etc.
She started at the tranquil surface of the water.
The hotel is in a tranquil rural setting.
A spasm of pain crossed his normally tranquil features.
tranquilly...adverb
tranquillity...US usually tranquility UK ,....noun
Living in peace and tranquity
I love the tranquity of the countryside.
tranquillize, US usually tranquilize , UK usually. tranquilise....verb....to make an animal or person become unconscious or calm, especially with a drug:
A tranquillizing drug
The dogs were tranquillized with a dart gun and taken to a shelter.
tranquillizer,,, tranquilizer ...tranquilliser{noun}
A drug used to make a person or animal calmer
She was on tranquillisers for a long time after her son died.
webster:
1. An untroubled state; free from disturbances.
2. A state of peace and quiet.
3. A disposition free from stress or emotion.
etymology: tranquil, tranquillity, tranquillize, tranquilisation,tranquillizer
usage:
1. We will be able to hear the sweet chirping of birds in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
{{{{ADVANCED}}}} cambridge....
tranquil: adjective... calm and peaceful and without noise, violence, anxiety etc.
She started at the tranquil surface of the water.
The hotel is in a tranquil rural setting.
A spasm of pain crossed his normally tranquil features.
tranquilly...adverb
tranquillity...US usually tranquility UK ,....noun
Living in peace and tranquity
I love the tranquity of the countryside.
tranquillize, US usually tranquilize , UK usually. tranquilise....verb....to make an animal or person become unconscious or calm, especially with a drug:
A tranquillizing drug
The dogs were tranquillized with a dart gun and taken to a shelter.
tranquillizer,,, tranquilizer ...tranquilliser{noun}
A drug used to make a person or animal calmer
She was on tranquillisers for a long time after her son died.
webster:
1. An untroubled state; free from disturbances.
2. A state of peace and quiet.
3. A disposition free from stress or emotion.
Friday, September 7, 2007
three words a day
The followings are the words which I have recently added in my vocabulary.....
1. IMBROGLIO:{noun...im-bro-glio}meaning:{hindi:confused mass, tangle,abyabastit dher, uljhan}{english:an embtoilment,an ordered confusion.an intricate and confusing political situation.}
usage:
1.both the parties have not decided to join the hands to come over the imbroglio.
2.the discussion of the deal after signing it created an imbroglio.
2.DICHOTOMY:{noun...dye-kho-tomy};meaning:{"english": a division into two strongly contrasted groups or classes, repeated branches, a classification between two opposed parts} the difference between two opposite things.
usage:
1.the dichomy between eastern and western culture.
2.there is always a dichotomy between what politicians say and what they do.
3.FOTHOM:{noun, and verb fe-dhom}meaning{hindi;andaza lagana, gehraee se mapna} english{to coooooomprehend, to measure deeply,to get into the bottom of} a noun{a nautical measure, six feet, penetration of mind}
noun: fathom, fathomless, fathometer{a sonic depth measure}, fathomline.
verb:to get into the bottom of, to understand some one or why someone acts as they do
adj:fathomable.
usage:
1. noun. I tried to operate the fathometer...I felt bad when I saw the fathomless depth in front of my eyes from the top of the tower{which cant be measured}
I felt attracted when I saw inthe fathomless depth of her brown eyes.
2.verb. For years people are trying to fathom (out) the mysteries of kala kacha giroh. ....I can't fathom her at all.
1. IMBROGLIO:{noun...im-bro-glio}meaning:{hindi:confused mass, tangle,abyabastit dher, uljhan}{english:an embtoilment,an ordered confusion.an intricate and confusing political situation.}
usage:
1.both the parties have not decided to join the hands to come over the imbroglio.
2.the discussion of the deal after signing it created an imbroglio.
2.DICHOTOMY:{noun...dye-kho-tomy};meaning:{"english": a division into two strongly contrasted groups or classes, repeated branches, a classification between two opposed parts} the difference between two opposite things.
usage:
1.the dichomy between eastern and western culture.
2.there is always a dichotomy between what politicians say and what they do.
3.FOTHOM:{noun, and verb fe-dhom}meaning{hindi;andaza lagana, gehraee se mapna} english{to coooooomprehend, to measure deeply,to get into the bottom of} a noun{a nautical measure, six feet, penetration of mind}
noun: fathom, fathomless, fathometer{a sonic depth measure}, fathomline.
verb:to get into the bottom of, to understand some one or why someone acts as they do
adj:fathomable.
usage:
1. noun. I tried to operate the fathometer...I felt bad when I saw the fathomless depth in front of my eyes from the top of the tower{which cant be measured}
I felt attracted when I saw inthe fathomless depth of her brown eyes.
2.verb. For years people are trying to fathom (out) the mysteries of kala kacha giroh. ....I can't fathom her at all.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
growing protests
Growing protests
JOHN CHERIAN
The deal fails to meet the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament, says CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat.
S. SUBRAMANIUM Left parties’ leaders (from right) Prakash Karat, A.B. Bardhan, Abani Roy and D. Raja oppose the nuclear agreement at a press conference in New Delhi on August 7.
DESPITE the hard sell by the Indian government, the nuclear deal with the United States has found very few takers among the Opposition parties. It has also come in for criticism in Washington and other foreign capitals. The powerful non-proliferation lobbies all over the world have started to swing into action in a last-ditch attempt to thwart the deal. Editorials in important newspapers in the U.S. have demanded that Congress take a stand against the 123 Agreement with India.
The popularity of U.S. President George W. Bush has plunged to abysmal levels and his administration is already in a lame-duck phase. Experts are of the view that the U.S. Congress has to give its approval by December. Otherwise, they feel, it will be difficult to formalise the deal. U.S. politics is in election mode, with the Republicans and the Democrats gearing up for the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. In retrospect, in India, it was naive on the part of the ruling Congress to expect the Left to give its imprimatur to the deal. From the outset, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had said that the negotiations were being conducted in secret by the emissaries of the government and that it was not kept in the loop. After studying the “123 Agreement” in detail, the Left parties unanimously rejected the nuclear deal. In a statement on August 7, they pointed out that the nuclear cooperation agreement should not be seen in isolation “from the overall strategic tie-up with the United States”. The deal, the Left parties emphasised, was an “integral part” of the July 2005 India-U.S. joint statement, which had political, economic and strategic aspects. The statement added that the nuclear agreement was closely linked with the June 2005 military framework agreement signed between the U.S. and India.
Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, told Frontline that the 123 Agreement could not be viewed in isolation. He said it should be seen in the context of the U.S.’ Hyde Act, which all American administrations would have to abide by. The Left parties have been emphasising that the new bilateral agreement cannot escape the wideranging provisions of the Act. A number of provisions of the Hyde Act passed by Congress could be used to coerce India into supporting American foreign policy goals.
The Hyde Act calls for annual certification and reporting to Congress by the President on a host of foreign policy issues. The administration will have to certify annually that India’s foreign policy is “congruent to that of the United States”.
Pressure on New Delhi to toe the Bush administration’s hawkish position on international issues has been evident for some time now. Iran is only an illustration. Top Bush administration officials have been making statements, virtually on a daily basis, asking New Delhi to distance itself from Teheran.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, the Bush administration’s point man in the 123 negotiations, aired his opinions on the subject in early August, just after the Indian Cabinet approved the deal. Burns told the media that Washington expected India “to be part of the international mainstream in trying to deal with one of the most difficult security problems we face today”.
More specifically, he demanded that India “diminish” its trade with the “nuclear outlaw” Iran. His boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recently opined that India should distance itself from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). She and other senior Bush administration officials have been saying that India should walk out of the proposed gas pipeline deal with Iran.
It is a known fact that India’s vote in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last year to send the Iran dossier to the United Nations Security Council was done under pressure from Washington. According to Rajiv Sikri, a senior diplomat who recently retired from the Indian Foreign Service and was very much involved in India’s dealings with the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. coerced India into voting for such a referral. According to Sikri, Washington wanted proof that India would be willing to adjust its foreign policy to converge with the American global agenda. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had expressed their sadness about India’s volte face on the issue in interviews to The Hindu and Frontline last year.
Many Indian policy-makers are of the opinion that assured energy supplies from Iran are more important for India than civil nuclear energy. Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, while describing the deal as “a shame”, pointed out that even after the setting up of new nuclear plants, nuclear energy would constitute only 7 per cent of India’s energy needs. “We can instead import coal, which can be done without conditionalities and set up power plants along the coastline,” V.P. Singh told the media.
Restrictions on India
Karat told Frontline that ultimately it would be U.S. national law that “will prevail” in the interpretation of the nuclear deal. “Washington”, he said, “expects a quid pro quo” from India. “Washington expects India to become a key ally. The deal fails to meet the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament,” said Karat. According to him, the deal will also place restrictions on India’s use of dual-use technologies.
The joint statement released by the Left parties stated that under the provisions of the Hyde Act, “it was clear that one of the key assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament on August 17, 2006 – that India-U.S. nuclear cooperation would cover the entire nuclear fuel cycle – would be violated”.
ANU PUSHKARNA BJP leaders Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha speak against the the agreement, in New Delhi in December 2006.
The statement noted that the 123 Agreement “denies access or cooperation in any form whatsoever to fuel enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production technologies. The statement of intent in the agreement that a suitable amendment to enable this access may be considered in the future has little or no operative value”.
The Left parties’ joint statement also said the Hyde Act’s position on the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty is “unacceptable”. Burns recently stated that the nuclear deal with India was about advancing the global U.S. non-proliferation agenda. He told the Council of Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank, that the 123 Agreement would bring India into the non-proliferation system “in such a way that it does not strengthen its military arsenal”.
Another key area of disagreement the Left has is regarding the Prime Minister’s assurance of India’s acceptance of safeguards in perpetuity in exchange for guarantees of uninterrupted fuel supply. The Hyde Act explicitly states that the U.S. will work with other countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to stop fuel and all other supplies to India if the agreement is terminated.
China has not made its position clear so far, but Beijing is known to be wary about the implications of the deal. Top Bush officials have said that one of the motivating factors behind Washington pushing for the deal was to turn India into a truly “great power”. The American foreign policy establishment has been looking at India as a natural ally as it prepares to face up to China, the new emerging superpower. The Chinese leadership on its part is cautiously observing the strategic moves being made by the U.S. and its allies in the Eurasian region.
The CPI(M) general secretary said his party, unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had taken a stand against nuclear testing for weaponisation, but this did not in any way mean that the country should accept U.S.-imposed sanctions on the country’s sovereign right to go in for a nuclear test.
Karat pointed out that unlike the BJP, which has also opposed the nuclear deal, the Left had a principled position on issues relating to non-alignment and disarmament. The BJP has also not spoken about the growing U.S. influence in the region. New Delhi has taken a back seat, as Washington is calling the shots in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The BJP has said that it will seek a revision of the 123 Agreement if voted back to power. The party has also proposed that the agreement should be put to vote in both Houses of Parliament. An External Affairs Minister in the NDA government, Yashwant Sinha, claimed that his party had “consistently opposed the deal in Parliament whenever discussions on this deal have taken place”.
Congress functionaries claimed that the BJP sought a similar deal with the U.S. when it was in power. It was the BJP leadership that had been consistently harping on the U.S. and India being “natural allies”. They said the NDA government actively pursued such a deal during its last years in power.
Initially, there seemed to be some confusion in the BJP ranks on the 123 Agreement. Former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, both close confidants of then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, seemed to be veering towards endorsing the deal. Mishra has since issued a statement criticising some aspects of the deal. The BJP, in a statement, said the party “is of the clear view that this agreement is an assault on our nuclear sovereignty and our foreign policy options”.
Yashwant Sinha said the U.S. had asked for the right to inspect Indian military and civilian nuclear projects and to send in their inspectors in the garb of “experts”. He alleged that the U.S. would also use the agreement as a pretext to intervene in negotiations between India and the IAEA. Sinha also claimed that under the new agreement, two-thirds of India’s reactors in the civilian category would be put under safeguards. “No effort was ever made by it [the government] to evolve a national consensus on this vital issue of national concern before making commitments to the U.S.,” the BJP statement said.
The Left, which will raise the issue in Parliament, has advised the Central government against the nuclear deal being “operationalised”. The Congress has rejected the demand of the Left parties for a Constitution Amendment Bill that would make parliamentary clearance a must for all important international agreements. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated that there was no question of going back on the agreement. He told Left leaders in the second week of August that the Union Cabinet had approved the agreement and it was therefore now “non-negotiable”. He said that renegotiating the deal would create a crisis in the United Progressive Alliance government.
Karat told Frontline that the Left had not thought of withdrawing support to the government. He said the Left parties would further intensify their struggle against the government to make it reverse its pro-American foreign policy. The Left parties announced that massive rallies would be held all along the east coast of the country as the navies of the U.S., Australia, Japan and Singapore prepare for joint exercises in September.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN CHERIAN
The deal fails to meet the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament, says CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat.
S. SUBRAMANIUM Left parties’ leaders (from right) Prakash Karat, A.B. Bardhan, Abani Roy and D. Raja oppose the nuclear agreement at a press conference in New Delhi on August 7.
DESPITE the hard sell by the Indian government, the nuclear deal with the United States has found very few takers among the Opposition parties. It has also come in for criticism in Washington and other foreign capitals. The powerful non-proliferation lobbies all over the world have started to swing into action in a last-ditch attempt to thwart the deal. Editorials in important newspapers in the U.S. have demanded that Congress take a stand against the 123 Agreement with India.
The popularity of U.S. President George W. Bush has plunged to abysmal levels and his administration is already in a lame-duck phase. Experts are of the view that the U.S. Congress has to give its approval by December. Otherwise, they feel, it will be difficult to formalise the deal. U.S. politics is in election mode, with the Republicans and the Democrats gearing up for the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. In retrospect, in India, it was naive on the part of the ruling Congress to expect the Left to give its imprimatur to the deal. From the outset, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had said that the negotiations were being conducted in secret by the emissaries of the government and that it was not kept in the loop. After studying the “123 Agreement” in detail, the Left parties unanimously rejected the nuclear deal. In a statement on August 7, they pointed out that the nuclear cooperation agreement should not be seen in isolation “from the overall strategic tie-up with the United States”. The deal, the Left parties emphasised, was an “integral part” of the July 2005 India-U.S. joint statement, which had political, economic and strategic aspects. The statement added that the nuclear agreement was closely linked with the June 2005 military framework agreement signed between the U.S. and India.
Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, told Frontline that the 123 Agreement could not be viewed in isolation. He said it should be seen in the context of the U.S.’ Hyde Act, which all American administrations would have to abide by. The Left parties have been emphasising that the new bilateral agreement cannot escape the wideranging provisions of the Act. A number of provisions of the Hyde Act passed by Congress could be used to coerce India into supporting American foreign policy goals.
The Hyde Act calls for annual certification and reporting to Congress by the President on a host of foreign policy issues. The administration will have to certify annually that India’s foreign policy is “congruent to that of the United States”.
Pressure on New Delhi to toe the Bush administration’s hawkish position on international issues has been evident for some time now. Iran is only an illustration. Top Bush administration officials have been making statements, virtually on a daily basis, asking New Delhi to distance itself from Teheran.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, the Bush administration’s point man in the 123 negotiations, aired his opinions on the subject in early August, just after the Indian Cabinet approved the deal. Burns told the media that Washington expected India “to be part of the international mainstream in trying to deal with one of the most difficult security problems we face today”.
More specifically, he demanded that India “diminish” its trade with the “nuclear outlaw” Iran. His boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recently opined that India should distance itself from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). She and other senior Bush administration officials have been saying that India should walk out of the proposed gas pipeline deal with Iran.
It is a known fact that India’s vote in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last year to send the Iran dossier to the United Nations Security Council was done under pressure from Washington. According to Rajiv Sikri, a senior diplomat who recently retired from the Indian Foreign Service and was very much involved in India’s dealings with the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. coerced India into voting for such a referral. According to Sikri, Washington wanted proof that India would be willing to adjust its foreign policy to converge with the American global agenda. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had expressed their sadness about India’s volte face on the issue in interviews to The Hindu and Frontline last year.
Many Indian policy-makers are of the opinion that assured energy supplies from Iran are more important for India than civil nuclear energy. Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, while describing the deal as “a shame”, pointed out that even after the setting up of new nuclear plants, nuclear energy would constitute only 7 per cent of India’s energy needs. “We can instead import coal, which can be done without conditionalities and set up power plants along the coastline,” V.P. Singh told the media.
Restrictions on India
Karat told Frontline that ultimately it would be U.S. national law that “will prevail” in the interpretation of the nuclear deal. “Washington”, he said, “expects a quid pro quo” from India. “Washington expects India to become a key ally. The deal fails to meet the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament,” said Karat. According to him, the deal will also place restrictions on India’s use of dual-use technologies.
The joint statement released by the Left parties stated that under the provisions of the Hyde Act, “it was clear that one of the key assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament on August 17, 2006 – that India-U.S. nuclear cooperation would cover the entire nuclear fuel cycle – would be violated”.
ANU PUSHKARNA BJP leaders Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha speak against the the agreement, in New Delhi in December 2006.
The statement noted that the 123 Agreement “denies access or cooperation in any form whatsoever to fuel enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production technologies. The statement of intent in the agreement that a suitable amendment to enable this access may be considered in the future has little or no operative value”.
The Left parties’ joint statement also said the Hyde Act’s position on the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty is “unacceptable”. Burns recently stated that the nuclear deal with India was about advancing the global U.S. non-proliferation agenda. He told the Council of Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank, that the 123 Agreement would bring India into the non-proliferation system “in such a way that it does not strengthen its military arsenal”.
Another key area of disagreement the Left has is regarding the Prime Minister’s assurance of India’s acceptance of safeguards in perpetuity in exchange for guarantees of uninterrupted fuel supply. The Hyde Act explicitly states that the U.S. will work with other countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to stop fuel and all other supplies to India if the agreement is terminated.
China has not made its position clear so far, but Beijing is known to be wary about the implications of the deal. Top Bush officials have said that one of the motivating factors behind Washington pushing for the deal was to turn India into a truly “great power”. The American foreign policy establishment has been looking at India as a natural ally as it prepares to face up to China, the new emerging superpower. The Chinese leadership on its part is cautiously observing the strategic moves being made by the U.S. and its allies in the Eurasian region.
The CPI(M) general secretary said his party, unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had taken a stand against nuclear testing for weaponisation, but this did not in any way mean that the country should accept U.S.-imposed sanctions on the country’s sovereign right to go in for a nuclear test.
Karat pointed out that unlike the BJP, which has also opposed the nuclear deal, the Left had a principled position on issues relating to non-alignment and disarmament. The BJP has also not spoken about the growing U.S. influence in the region. New Delhi has taken a back seat, as Washington is calling the shots in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The BJP has said that it will seek a revision of the 123 Agreement if voted back to power. The party has also proposed that the agreement should be put to vote in both Houses of Parliament. An External Affairs Minister in the NDA government, Yashwant Sinha, claimed that his party had “consistently opposed the deal in Parliament whenever discussions on this deal have taken place”.
Congress functionaries claimed that the BJP sought a similar deal with the U.S. when it was in power. It was the BJP leadership that had been consistently harping on the U.S. and India being “natural allies”. They said the NDA government actively pursued such a deal during its last years in power.
Initially, there seemed to be some confusion in the BJP ranks on the 123 Agreement. Former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, both close confidants of then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, seemed to be veering towards endorsing the deal. Mishra has since issued a statement criticising some aspects of the deal. The BJP, in a statement, said the party “is of the clear view that this agreement is an assault on our nuclear sovereignty and our foreign policy options”.
Yashwant Sinha said the U.S. had asked for the right to inspect Indian military and civilian nuclear projects and to send in their inspectors in the garb of “experts”. He alleged that the U.S. would also use the agreement as a pretext to intervene in negotiations between India and the IAEA. Sinha also claimed that under the new agreement, two-thirds of India’s reactors in the civilian category would be put under safeguards. “No effort was ever made by it [the government] to evolve a national consensus on this vital issue of national concern before making commitments to the U.S.,” the BJP statement said.
The Left, which will raise the issue in Parliament, has advised the Central government against the nuclear deal being “operationalised”. The Congress has rejected the demand of the Left parties for a Constitution Amendment Bill that would make parliamentary clearance a must for all important international agreements. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated that there was no question of going back on the agreement. He told Left leaders in the second week of August that the Union Cabinet had approved the agreement and it was therefore now “non-negotiable”. He said that renegotiating the deal would create a crisis in the United Progressive Alliance government.
Karat told Frontline that the Left had not thought of withdrawing support to the government. He said the Left parties would further intensify their struggle against the government to make it reverse its pro-American foreign policy. The Left parties announced that massive rallies would be held all along the east coast of the country as the navies of the U.S., Australia, Japan and Singapore prepare for joint exercises in September.
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euphoria and fear
Euphoria and fear
T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
Some nuclear scientists welcome the agreement, while others are concerned about the consent clause on reprocessing spent fuel.
MOHAMMED YOUSUF S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.
OPINION is divided sharply among informed nuclear scientists and engineers on whether the 123 Agreement will benefit India in the long run. While officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a public sector unit that undertakes the construction of nuclear power projects, are “thrilled” that the agreement will provide the company with “an opportunity to accelerate the nuclear power programme”, retired scientists from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) criticise it as “one-sided” – prepared only for the benefit of the U.S.
S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL, said the company had been “waiting for the past two years and a half for” the finalisation of the agreement. In fact, the entire nuclear industry in India was “euphoric and upbeat with this particular agreement”, he said.
But A.N. Prasad, former Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, said the whole deal was one-sided as it was bound by the Hyde Act of December 2006, which makes it clear that the U.S. shall not supply reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production technologies to India. “Even consultations will be one-sided because they will always remind us about the Hyde Act, and we don’t have an equivalent law on our side,” he said.
Prasad, a pioneer in reprocessing technology in India, said the agreement did not grant India upfront consent for reprocessing into plutonium the spent fuel from the reactors to be imported. He said: “The way the reprocessing issue has been resolved does not give any comfort. What has been agreed to in principle is that consent has been given in principle for the arrangements and procedures to be agreed in future [for reprocessing]. Having offered to build a national, dedicated facility for reprocessing the spent fuel, we should have got an unconditional upfront consent for reprocessing to be made effective on the satisfactory conclusion of safeguards.”
Placid Rodriguez, former Director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), which designs and develops Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), rejected the claim that the agreement was a balanced one. “It is a euphemism to say that it is an agreement between equals. On [the question of] reprocessing, we have not really concluded the issue.” He said no upfront consent was given to India. India is allowed to make a “request” for reprocessing. Even if the U.S. consented to the request, it [the consent] “will go back to Congress” for review, he said.
M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, took a neutral stand by describing it as “the best compromise that can be worked out at this point of time” and as “the best way to move forward”. However, “we must be alert and make sure that subsequent steps are not taken to lead us to make further concessions or erode our position,” Srinivasan, now an AEC member, said.
V.V. KRISHNAN A.N. Prasad, former Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
In the susurrus of criticism that the agreement has created among both the nuclear community and politicians, what has not been highlighted is the hard bargain the Indian delegation drove with its U.S. counterparts at the negotiations in New Delhi, Cape Town, London and Washington.
Officials of the DAE called it “a fantastic team effort” and complimented the crucial, but low-key, role of Ravi B. Grover, Director of the DAE’s Strategic Planning Group. According to the DAE, Grover, who is also Director of the Knowledge Management Group of BARC, stood like a rock against the onslaught of American demands. While the core negotiating team comprised officials of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India’s High Commissioner to Singapore S. Jaishankar, Joint Secretary (Americas) Gayatri Kumar and Grover, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon stepped into the picture when the negotiations reached a decisive stage. In the final round in Washington in July, AEC Chairman and DAE Secretary Anil Kakodkar was available for consultations, although he did not participate directly in the negotiations.
Jain was confident that the “full process” of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) relaxing its guidelines to enable India to import reactors would take place “smoothly”. “We will have an opportunity to accelerate our nuclear power programme in a big way both by importing reactors and fuel… We are looking at the development as an appropriate opportunity not only for NPCIL but for the entire Indian nuclear industry to become part of the global action,” he said.
Explaining how this was possible, he said India needed huge amounts of energy for its burgeoning population. But an important point was how fast its energy requirements were met. China had a similar ambitious nuclear power programme. The Russians were also planning to build two reactors a year.
“Already, in the U.S., where there was a stagnation of nuclear power projects for the past two decades, 30 applications have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for launching these [30 nuclear electricity projects] in the next decade. So more than 100 reactors, as of today, are expected to be ordered in the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.
But the number of players in the nuclear market could be counted on one’s fingers. They include Rosatom of the Russian Federation, Areva of France and Westinghouse and General Electric of the U.S. Jain said the American nuclear industry, owing to stagnation, did not have the capability to manufacture high-precision and larger equipment. The present industry would not be able to meet the orders that were expected to pour in for reactors. “So this opens a big opportunity for the Indian industry to have tie-ups with foreign players and develop indigenous capability, which will go a long way in meeting not only the requirements of India but other countries,” he said.
India could become an exporter of nuclear reactors and nuclear technology. Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where the grid size is small, are looking for small and medium-sized nuclear power reactors. The Indian nuclear industry is the most vibrant industry in the manufacture of reactors ranging from 220 MWe to 700 MWe. “We are well placed in servicing this sector of the market,” Jain said. Representatives from power utilities in Thailand and Cambodia have met NPCIL officials. Other countries have also expressed interest in buying reactors from India.
They are aware that India could neither import nor export nuclear technology because of the NSG restrictions. (The NSG Guidelines mandate that its 45 members shall not sell reactors or buy reactors from India since India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Although India is not a member of the NPT, it has implemented the treaty in letter and spirit.
Once India signs an India-specific safeguards treaty with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the NSG relaxes its guidelines, the country can sign agreements either to import reactors or to export its Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). India had held exploratory and preparatory talks with countries that wanted to assess the Indian nuclear industry’s capability to supply safe, economic and reliable reactors, the NPCIL Chairman said.
Just as India is looking for uninterrupted supply of fuel for the life-time of its reactors, countries in the Asia-Pacific region want to import reactors with guaranteed life-time supply of fuel. Once international civil nuclear cooperation opened up to India, NPCIL and the DAE would like to have stakes in the global uranium business, Jain said. India could have stakes in natural uranium mines in other countries either as the owner or as a partner in joint ventures. “For reactors fuelled by natural uranium [that is, PHWRs), we have got the entire technology of fabricating quality fuel, which we can supply at competitive prices,” he added.
HYDE ACT
K. MURALI KUMAR Placid Rodriguez, former Director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam.
The Hyde Act denies the technology of reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production to India. Under the Act, the U.S. can terminate the 123 Agreement not only if India conducted a nuclear explosion but took a stand on Iran and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) that went against the U.S.’ interests.
What intrigued Prasad was U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns’ repeated claim that India would build a dedicated, “state-of-the-art” facility for reprocessing the spent fuel. “How can we convince him that the facility is state-of-the-art? Burns has got something up his sleeve when he keeps repeating that it should be state-of-the-art. They will find some fault with it, keep dragging [their feet] and we will lose time,” in reprocessing, Prasad said.
He alleged that the U.S.’ game was “to hit” at India’s indigenous three-stage nuclear power programme because reprocessing formed the backbone of the three stages. The U.S.’ intention was to block us from reaching the second and third stages. The spent fuel from the PHWRs, which used natural uranium as fuel, was reprocessed into plutonium. This plutonium mixed with uranium as oxide would be the fuel for the FBRs, which would form the second stage. Naturally available thorium formed a blanket around the fuel bundles made of plutonium-uranium oxide. In the FBRs, this thorium was converted into uranium-233, a fissile material. In the third stage, a string of breeder reactors would use India’s vastly available thorium and uranium-233 as fuel.
“In both the stages, reprocessing is the central point. They are trying to hit that,” Prasad said. “It hurts because we have worked so hard in reprocessing. We mastered the reprocessing technology more than 40 years ago. [A plutonium separation plant started functioning at BARC in January 1965.] We were respected. But they deny us reprocessing technology,” Prasad said.
VIVEK BENDRE Ravi B. Grover, Director, Strategic Planning Group, Department of Atomic Energy, who was a member of the negotiation team.
He feared that India would face another danger once the 123 Agreement was in place. “Uranium suppliers will form a cartel, increase the price of natural uranium and will fleece us. So the cost of generating electricity will go up,” Prasad said. “It is better to suffer for some more time than to succumb,” he added.
Rodriguez alleged that the full civilian nuclear cooperation promised to India in the July 18, 2005 joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush did not materialise in the 123 Agreement. There was no upfront consent given to India for reprocessing the spent fuel.
Technologies relating to reprocessing, enrichment of uranium and heavy water production could be transferred to India only after an amendment is made to the agreement. Besides, the agreement makes it clear that transfers of dual-use items that can be used in reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production are subject to the parties’ applicable laws, regulations and licence policies. This was not the full civilian nuclear operation promised to India, Rodriguez said.
Although the Prime Minister went on record saying that “there is no question of allowing American inspectors to roam around our nuclear facilities”, the agreement has a provision that “if the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and the recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures”. This would enable American inspection of India’s nuclear facilities, Rodriguez said.
T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
Some nuclear scientists welcome the agreement, while others are concerned about the consent clause on reprocessing spent fuel.
MOHAMMED YOUSUF S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.
OPINION is divided sharply among informed nuclear scientists and engineers on whether the 123 Agreement will benefit India in the long run. While officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a public sector unit that undertakes the construction of nuclear power projects, are “thrilled” that the agreement will provide the company with “an opportunity to accelerate the nuclear power programme”, retired scientists from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) criticise it as “one-sided” – prepared only for the benefit of the U.S.
S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL, said the company had been “waiting for the past two years and a half for” the finalisation of the agreement. In fact, the entire nuclear industry in India was “euphoric and upbeat with this particular agreement”, he said.
But A.N. Prasad, former Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, said the whole deal was one-sided as it was bound by the Hyde Act of December 2006, which makes it clear that the U.S. shall not supply reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production technologies to India. “Even consultations will be one-sided because they will always remind us about the Hyde Act, and we don’t have an equivalent law on our side,” he said.
Prasad, a pioneer in reprocessing technology in India, said the agreement did not grant India upfront consent for reprocessing into plutonium the spent fuel from the reactors to be imported. He said: “The way the reprocessing issue has been resolved does not give any comfort. What has been agreed to in principle is that consent has been given in principle for the arrangements and procedures to be agreed in future [for reprocessing]. Having offered to build a national, dedicated facility for reprocessing the spent fuel, we should have got an unconditional upfront consent for reprocessing to be made effective on the satisfactory conclusion of safeguards.”
Placid Rodriguez, former Director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), which designs and develops Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), rejected the claim that the agreement was a balanced one. “It is a euphemism to say that it is an agreement between equals. On [the question of] reprocessing, we have not really concluded the issue.” He said no upfront consent was given to India. India is allowed to make a “request” for reprocessing. Even if the U.S. consented to the request, it [the consent] “will go back to Congress” for review, he said.
M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, took a neutral stand by describing it as “the best compromise that can be worked out at this point of time” and as “the best way to move forward”. However, “we must be alert and make sure that subsequent steps are not taken to lead us to make further concessions or erode our position,” Srinivasan, now an AEC member, said.
V.V. KRISHNAN A.N. Prasad, former Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
In the susurrus of criticism that the agreement has created among both the nuclear community and politicians, what has not been highlighted is the hard bargain the Indian delegation drove with its U.S. counterparts at the negotiations in New Delhi, Cape Town, London and Washington.
Officials of the DAE called it “a fantastic team effort” and complimented the crucial, but low-key, role of Ravi B. Grover, Director of the DAE’s Strategic Planning Group. According to the DAE, Grover, who is also Director of the Knowledge Management Group of BARC, stood like a rock against the onslaught of American demands. While the core negotiating team comprised officials of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India’s High Commissioner to Singapore S. Jaishankar, Joint Secretary (Americas) Gayatri Kumar and Grover, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon stepped into the picture when the negotiations reached a decisive stage. In the final round in Washington in July, AEC Chairman and DAE Secretary Anil Kakodkar was available for consultations, although he did not participate directly in the negotiations.
Jain was confident that the “full process” of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) relaxing its guidelines to enable India to import reactors would take place “smoothly”. “We will have an opportunity to accelerate our nuclear power programme in a big way both by importing reactors and fuel… We are looking at the development as an appropriate opportunity not only for NPCIL but for the entire Indian nuclear industry to become part of the global action,” he said.
Explaining how this was possible, he said India needed huge amounts of energy for its burgeoning population. But an important point was how fast its energy requirements were met. China had a similar ambitious nuclear power programme. The Russians were also planning to build two reactors a year.
“Already, in the U.S., where there was a stagnation of nuclear power projects for the past two decades, 30 applications have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for launching these [30 nuclear electricity projects] in the next decade. So more than 100 reactors, as of today, are expected to be ordered in the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.
But the number of players in the nuclear market could be counted on one’s fingers. They include Rosatom of the Russian Federation, Areva of France and Westinghouse and General Electric of the U.S. Jain said the American nuclear industry, owing to stagnation, did not have the capability to manufacture high-precision and larger equipment. The present industry would not be able to meet the orders that were expected to pour in for reactors. “So this opens a big opportunity for the Indian industry to have tie-ups with foreign players and develop indigenous capability, which will go a long way in meeting not only the requirements of India but other countries,” he said.
India could become an exporter of nuclear reactors and nuclear technology. Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where the grid size is small, are looking for small and medium-sized nuclear power reactors. The Indian nuclear industry is the most vibrant industry in the manufacture of reactors ranging from 220 MWe to 700 MWe. “We are well placed in servicing this sector of the market,” Jain said. Representatives from power utilities in Thailand and Cambodia have met NPCIL officials. Other countries have also expressed interest in buying reactors from India.
They are aware that India could neither import nor export nuclear technology because of the NSG restrictions. (The NSG Guidelines mandate that its 45 members shall not sell reactors or buy reactors from India since India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Although India is not a member of the NPT, it has implemented the treaty in letter and spirit.
Once India signs an India-specific safeguards treaty with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the NSG relaxes its guidelines, the country can sign agreements either to import reactors or to export its Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). India had held exploratory and preparatory talks with countries that wanted to assess the Indian nuclear industry’s capability to supply safe, economic and reliable reactors, the NPCIL Chairman said.
Just as India is looking for uninterrupted supply of fuel for the life-time of its reactors, countries in the Asia-Pacific region want to import reactors with guaranteed life-time supply of fuel. Once international civil nuclear cooperation opened up to India, NPCIL and the DAE would like to have stakes in the global uranium business, Jain said. India could have stakes in natural uranium mines in other countries either as the owner or as a partner in joint ventures. “For reactors fuelled by natural uranium [that is, PHWRs), we have got the entire technology of fabricating quality fuel, which we can supply at competitive prices,” he added.
HYDE ACT
K. MURALI KUMAR Placid Rodriguez, former Director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam.
The Hyde Act denies the technology of reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production to India. Under the Act, the U.S. can terminate the 123 Agreement not only if India conducted a nuclear explosion but took a stand on Iran and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) that went against the U.S.’ interests.
What intrigued Prasad was U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns’ repeated claim that India would build a dedicated, “state-of-the-art” facility for reprocessing the spent fuel. “How can we convince him that the facility is state-of-the-art? Burns has got something up his sleeve when he keeps repeating that it should be state-of-the-art. They will find some fault with it, keep dragging [their feet] and we will lose time,” in reprocessing, Prasad said.
He alleged that the U.S.’ game was “to hit” at India’s indigenous three-stage nuclear power programme because reprocessing formed the backbone of the three stages. The U.S.’ intention was to block us from reaching the second and third stages. The spent fuel from the PHWRs, which used natural uranium as fuel, was reprocessed into plutonium. This plutonium mixed with uranium as oxide would be the fuel for the FBRs, which would form the second stage. Naturally available thorium formed a blanket around the fuel bundles made of plutonium-uranium oxide. In the FBRs, this thorium was converted into uranium-233, a fissile material. In the third stage, a string of breeder reactors would use India’s vastly available thorium and uranium-233 as fuel.
“In both the stages, reprocessing is the central point. They are trying to hit that,” Prasad said. “It hurts because we have worked so hard in reprocessing. We mastered the reprocessing technology more than 40 years ago. [A plutonium separation plant started functioning at BARC in January 1965.] We were respected. But they deny us reprocessing technology,” Prasad said.
VIVEK BENDRE Ravi B. Grover, Director, Strategic Planning Group, Department of Atomic Energy, who was a member of the negotiation team.
He feared that India would face another danger once the 123 Agreement was in place. “Uranium suppliers will form a cartel, increase the price of natural uranium and will fleece us. So the cost of generating electricity will go up,” Prasad said. “It is better to suffer for some more time than to succumb,” he added.
Rodriguez alleged that the full civilian nuclear cooperation promised to India in the July 18, 2005 joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush did not materialise in the 123 Agreement. There was no upfront consent given to India for reprocessing the spent fuel.
Technologies relating to reprocessing, enrichment of uranium and heavy water production could be transferred to India only after an amendment is made to the agreement. Besides, the agreement makes it clear that transfers of dual-use items that can be used in reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production are subject to the parties’ applicable laws, regulations and licence policies. This was not the full civilian nuclear operation promised to India, Rodriguez said.
Although the Prime Minister went on record saying that “there is no question of allowing American inspectors to roam around our nuclear facilities”, the agreement has a provision that “if the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and the recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures”. This would enable American inspection of India’s nuclear facilities, Rodriguez said.
over NSG
COVER STORY
Over to NSG
HAVING wrapped up the “Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”, or the 123 Agreement as it is called, the natural question that arises is, What Next?
The next important step that India must take is to negotiate an India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for implementation on its civilian facilities as identified in the civil-military Separation Plan of March 2, 2006. This is because Section 104 (b)(2) of the Hyde Act, which is the enabling U.S. legislation for civilian nuclear cooperation with India, requires a determination by the U.S. President, while submitting the proposed 123 Agreement to Congress for its approval, that “India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have concluded all legal steps required prior to signature by the parties of an agreement requiring the application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity… to India’s civil nuclear materials and programmes… including materials used in or produced through the use of India’s civil nuclear facilities”.
There should also be evidence to show that “India and the IAEA are making substantial progress toward concluding an Additional Protocol… that would apply to India’s civil nuclear programme” because a determination of this by the President is also a requirement under the Hyde Act. Besides these, the President has to make a determination on five other actions, which, unlike the negotiation of IAEA safeguards, do not require any immediate action on India’s part.
The most important one among them [Section 104 (b)(7)] is action by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). It requires the NSG to have decided by consensus to permit supply of nuclear items covered by its Guidelines. Items covered by NSG Guidelines (I & II) are the nuclear ‘Trigger List’ – items for direct application in nuclear fuel cycle operations – and nuclear ‘dual-use’ items. The NSG may also prefer to see a safeguards agreement with the IAEA before bringing about India-specific amendments to its Guidelines so as to enable nuclear trade with India.
Once the President makes these determinations, he can waive the requirement of full-scope safeguards (FSS) for an agreement under Section 123 a.(2) of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), waive the requirement of annual congressional review of exports to India under Section 128, and waive application of sanctions for having detonated a nuclear device under Section 129, and submit the 123 Agreement to Congress through the routine approval process (as if India were not exempt from any of the nine conditions under Section 123 of the AEA).
Such an Agreement will enter into force unless Congress passes a joint resolution of disapproval. Also, it will be just an up-down vote, which means that Congress cannot include amendments to the Agreement.
But negotiating an India-specific safeguards agreement may not be easy as India intends to have the safeguards regime to provide for, under Article 5.6(c) of the 123 Agreement, “corrective measures that India may take to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies”. However, India does not seem to have worked out what these “corrective measures” will be and whether these will be acceptable to the IAEA. More importantly, these have to be acceptable to Congress and the NSG, which may want to take a look at the safeguards regime before amending its Guidelines. But so far the government or the Department of Atomic Energy has not given any indication of its thinking on this issue.
The NSG is likely to meet in September for its autumn meeting and could take up the matter of amending the Guidelines on the basis of the 123 Agreement. The autumn meeting is also the time when South Africa hands over the chairmanship of the NSG to Germany. However, if the NSG members insist on the India-specific safeguards being in place as well, there could be a problem because it is unlikely that safeguards could be negotiated by then. For one, there does not seem to be clarification yet on the exact nature of safeguards. In fact, Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), stated at the post-123 Agreement press briefing on July 27 that the government had not set any time frame for the conclusion of a safeguards agreement.
Secondly, the IAEA would be busy in September with its General Assembly and would hardly be able to devote time to put this matter on its agenda. But if the NSG would like to have the safeguards regime negotiated before it can consider any amendment, the matter will have to wait until May-June 2008 when its annual Plenary takes place. However, since the U.S. has agreed to facilitate the amendments at the NSG, it could use its influence to postpone the autumn meeting a bit and allow it to take up India’s case, sources in the government say.
Of course, consensus on amendment at the NSG is unlikely to be an easy proposition. There could be opposition from China, even though its Foreign Minister was recently quoted as saying that China would adopt a flexible approach and would at the same time try to strengthen international non-proliferation measures. There are Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden and others such as Japan who could oppose any change of the Guidelines. So the other major task that the Indian government has after concluding the 123 Agreement is to have its Foreign Office engage intensely in lobbying its cause, through diplomatic and other channels, with the potential opponents at the NSG.
If the NSG does make the necessary amendments on the basis of the negotiated 123 Agreement itself, then it becomes immaterial whether Congress approves the Agreement or not. Then India has access to nuclear technology and equipment from the other members of the NSG, in particular Russia and France who are waiting for the world nuclear trade regime to change in favour of India with its huge market potential.
Of course, it is possible that the NSG could make the amendments subject to congressional approval of the 123 Agreement. But given the keenness of the U.S. administration – evident from the U.S yielding on the issues of spent fuel reprocessing, conducting a nuclear test and assurances of lifetime fuel supply – it seems unlikely that the agreement would face any hurdle in Congress. However, the final inking of the agreement will not happen before the end of the year and if India does not get its act together.
But most importantly, given the opposition to the deal, the Prime Minister would do well to address the issues raised in Parliament and convince the House that the deal is good for the country (which is far from clear) rather than say that the deal is now “non-negotiable”.
R. Ramachandran
Over to NSG
HAVING wrapped up the “Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy”, or the 123 Agreement as it is called, the natural question that arises is, What Next?
The next important step that India must take is to negotiate an India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for implementation on its civilian facilities as identified in the civil-military Separation Plan of March 2, 2006. This is because Section 104 (b)(2) of the Hyde Act, which is the enabling U.S. legislation for civilian nuclear cooperation with India, requires a determination by the U.S. President, while submitting the proposed 123 Agreement to Congress for its approval, that “India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have concluded all legal steps required prior to signature by the parties of an agreement requiring the application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity… to India’s civil nuclear materials and programmes… including materials used in or produced through the use of India’s civil nuclear facilities”.
There should also be evidence to show that “India and the IAEA are making substantial progress toward concluding an Additional Protocol… that would apply to India’s civil nuclear programme” because a determination of this by the President is also a requirement under the Hyde Act. Besides these, the President has to make a determination on five other actions, which, unlike the negotiation of IAEA safeguards, do not require any immediate action on India’s part.
The most important one among them [Section 104 (b)(7)] is action by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). It requires the NSG to have decided by consensus to permit supply of nuclear items covered by its Guidelines. Items covered by NSG Guidelines (I & II) are the nuclear ‘Trigger List’ – items for direct application in nuclear fuel cycle operations – and nuclear ‘dual-use’ items. The NSG may also prefer to see a safeguards agreement with the IAEA before bringing about India-specific amendments to its Guidelines so as to enable nuclear trade with India.
Once the President makes these determinations, he can waive the requirement of full-scope safeguards (FSS) for an agreement under Section 123 a.(2) of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), waive the requirement of annual congressional review of exports to India under Section 128, and waive application of sanctions for having detonated a nuclear device under Section 129, and submit the 123 Agreement to Congress through the routine approval process (as if India were not exempt from any of the nine conditions under Section 123 of the AEA).
Such an Agreement will enter into force unless Congress passes a joint resolution of disapproval. Also, it will be just an up-down vote, which means that Congress cannot include amendments to the Agreement.
But negotiating an India-specific safeguards agreement may not be easy as India intends to have the safeguards regime to provide for, under Article 5.6(c) of the 123 Agreement, “corrective measures that India may take to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies”. However, India does not seem to have worked out what these “corrective measures” will be and whether these will be acceptable to the IAEA. More importantly, these have to be acceptable to Congress and the NSG, which may want to take a look at the safeguards regime before amending its Guidelines. But so far the government or the Department of Atomic Energy has not given any indication of its thinking on this issue.
The NSG is likely to meet in September for its autumn meeting and could take up the matter of amending the Guidelines on the basis of the 123 Agreement. The autumn meeting is also the time when South Africa hands over the chairmanship of the NSG to Germany. However, if the NSG members insist on the India-specific safeguards being in place as well, there could be a problem because it is unlikely that safeguards could be negotiated by then. For one, there does not seem to be clarification yet on the exact nature of safeguards. In fact, Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), stated at the post-123 Agreement press briefing on July 27 that the government had not set any time frame for the conclusion of a safeguards agreement.
Secondly, the IAEA would be busy in September with its General Assembly and would hardly be able to devote time to put this matter on its agenda. But if the NSG would like to have the safeguards regime negotiated before it can consider any amendment, the matter will have to wait until May-June 2008 when its annual Plenary takes place. However, since the U.S. has agreed to facilitate the amendments at the NSG, it could use its influence to postpone the autumn meeting a bit and allow it to take up India’s case, sources in the government say.
Of course, consensus on amendment at the NSG is unlikely to be an easy proposition. There could be opposition from China, even though its Foreign Minister was recently quoted as saying that China would adopt a flexible approach and would at the same time try to strengthen international non-proliferation measures. There are Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden and others such as Japan who could oppose any change of the Guidelines. So the other major task that the Indian government has after concluding the 123 Agreement is to have its Foreign Office engage intensely in lobbying its cause, through diplomatic and other channels, with the potential opponents at the NSG.
If the NSG does make the necessary amendments on the basis of the negotiated 123 Agreement itself, then it becomes immaterial whether Congress approves the Agreement or not. Then India has access to nuclear technology and equipment from the other members of the NSG, in particular Russia and France who are waiting for the world nuclear trade regime to change in favour of India with its huge market potential.
Of course, it is possible that the NSG could make the amendments subject to congressional approval of the 123 Agreement. But given the keenness of the U.S. administration – evident from the U.S yielding on the issues of spent fuel reprocessing, conducting a nuclear test and assurances of lifetime fuel supply – it seems unlikely that the agreement would face any hurdle in Congress. However, the final inking of the agreement will not happen before the end of the year and if India does not get its act together.
But most importantly, given the opposition to the deal, the Prime Minister would do well to address the issues raised in Parliament and convince the House that the deal is good for the country (which is far from clear) rather than say that the deal is now “non-negotiable”.
R. Ramachandran
deal and debate
Deal and Debate:
R. RAMACHANDRAN
The 123 Agreement as concluded is more acceptable and domestically saleable in both countries than what it was in its original form.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/REUTERS In Washington on July 18, 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush made the joint statement on India-U.S. cooperation in nuclear, space and other issues.
NEARLY two years after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush issued the Joint Statement on July 18, 2005 that set the stage for facilitating civil nuclear cooperation and commerce between India and the United States, the agreement formalising the stated intent was concluded on July 20 and unveiled on August 1.
The finalisation of the text of the agreement, known as the ‘123 Agreement’ after Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act (AEA) which governs international nuclear cooperation by the U.S., took place in Washington during July 17-20. This was the fifth round of negotiations after the process began in June 2006, which was extended beyond the originally scheduled three days. According to reports, the talks, which had in fact been declared closed with “substantial progress made on the outstanding issues”, were resumed after Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice-President, met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and pronounced that the deal be somehow concluded and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice directly intervened to make it happen.
“The commitments expressed in the Joint Statements of July 18, 2005 and March 2, 2006 have been fully reflected in the final text,” stated Narayanan, who led the Indian delegation at the press briefing on July 27. Likewise, the fact sheet issued by the Indian government claimed that the text met the concerns of both sides and fulfilled all the assurances made by the Prime Minister on August 17, 2006.
In what follows, we discuss whether this is indeed true of the negotiated Agreement. The outstanding issues – from the standpoint of Prime Minister’s assurances – that remained to be resolved during the negotiations were the following: (a) “full civil nuclear cooperation”, where “full” in the Indian government’s interpretation implied “all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle” (emphasis added); (b) the Indian right to reprocess (under safeguards) the spent fuel resulting from nuclear material of U.S. origin; (c) “fall-back safeguards” involving bilateral arrangements if safeguards implementation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are seen to be inadequate; (d) maintenance of India’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing being made binding by linking it to the 123 Agreement through its termination following a test; (e) the U.S. right of return of material and equipment supplied under the agreement following an Indian nuclear test and the consequent cessation of cooperation; and, (f) assurance of continued fuel supply (for the lifetime of safeguarded reactors) given by Bush on March 2, 2006, following the Indian civil-military separation plan and placing civilian nuclear facilities under safeguards in perpetuity in the event of termination of the agreement for reasons including an Indian nuclear test.
To claim that all the assurances of the Prime Minister and all the above concerns have been fully met in the final 123 Agreement is misleading because if India had not yielded from its original position on these contentious issues (see Frontline, June 29), there would have been no agreement. However, it must be admitted that the negotiators did a commendable job in drafting the agreement in a language that makes it more acceptable and domestically saleable (in both countries) than what it was in its original form. Indeed, the language used and its implications are quite unlike any of the earlier 123 Agreements that the U.S. has signed with other countries.
It must, however, be realised that if India wants such a deal, notwithstanding the conditions under which the agreement can be effected, this may be the best that one can hope to get given the constraints of U.S. domestic laws that the agreement, as its preamble spells out clearly, has to conform to. Also, it is better to have the best possible, but imperfect, agreement – if we want to engage in international nuclear trade – on which basis the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) can make India-specific amendments to its export guidelines than to wait for the perfect agreement which may never happen. The question whether we do need the deal is indeed moot but that will not be addressed here.
The real substantive gains from India’s point of view are the consent to reprocess spent fuel in principle and the substantial room for negotiations and time buffer built into the Agreement before its possible termination even following a nuclear test. The former became possible after India recently offered to place a dedicated reprocessing facility for reprocessing safeguarded spent fuel under safeguards in perpetuity (see Frontline, June 29). Even here there are ambiguities that perhaps need to be clarified through bilateral discussions. The resolutions as regards the other issues are either partial or only apparent because of the careful wording of the relevant clauses in the 123 text.
Consider (a) above. The preamble to the 123 Agreement itself denies “full civilian nuclear cooperation”, as interpreted by India. The phrase is elaborated to mean, “covering aspects of the associated nuclear fuel cycle”, with the word all in (a) above dropped. This is reiterated under Article 2 on Scope of Cooperation (Clause 2.2d). According to reliable sources this has the implication that reprocessing and enrichment technology or equipment will not be transferred. Significantly, however, according to Clause 2.2(e), the scope will include the “development of a strategic reserve” of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India’s reactors, which is of relevance to issue (f) above.
To reiterate that the agreement will have no bearing on the strategic or unsafeguarded or military nuclear activities of either party, Clause 2.4 says: “[N]othing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as affecting the rights of the Parties to use for their own purposes nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by them independent of any nuclear material… transferred to them pursuant to this Agreement. The Agreement shall be implemented in a manner so as not to hinder or otherwise interfere with any other activities involving the use of nuclear material… and military nuclear facilities produced, acquired or developed by them independent of this Agreement for their own purposes.”
The Prime Minister had also stated in Parliament: “The central imperative in our discussions with the United States on civil nuclear cooperation is to ensure the complete and irreversible removal of existing restrictions imposed on India through iniquitous restrictive trading regimes over the years.” India being a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) as per U.S. law, which follows from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such an expectation is highly unrealistic. In particular, export of nuclear ‘Trigger List’ items, which are directly used in nuclear fuel cycle activities, requires full-scope safeguards (FSS) both under U.S. law and under Guidelines I of the NSG. However, Article 4.2 of the 123 Agreement ensures that appropriate export licences are issued for “sound and efficient administration of this Agreement” by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the licensing authority for such items.
Of course, such trade with the U.S. can commence only if the NSG too makes its India-specific amendments to the Guidelines to facilitate such transfers to India, which will also enable trade in such items with other countries. However, Article 5.2 spells out restrictions as regards transfer of technology and equipment relating to reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production, normally referred to in U.S. regulations as sensitive nuclear technologies (SNTs). Interestingly, however, in the present 123 Agreement, heavy water technology and equipment have been separated and SNT refers only to reprocessing and enrichment technologies. This, according to informed sources, was to facilitate the possibility of accessing equipment and critical components for heavy water production in which India’s pre-eminence is well demonstrated, if not for reprocessing. But, in any case, any envisaged transfer of SNTs and heavy water technology and equipment cannot be automatic, and according to Article 5.2, “may be transferred only pursuant to an amendment to this Agreement”. This implies a Congressional approval and, therefore, a hurdle. If the amendments to NSG Guidelines too strictly follow the provisions of the 123 Agreement, these too may not facilitate transfers of these from elsewhere, in particular for the proposed dedicated reprocessing facility.
One of the issues raised by the Left parties in their statement on August 7 pertains to the restrictions on nuclear-related dual-use items as well. Transfer of nuclear dual-use items globally are controlled by Guidelines II of the NSG. In the U.S., the Department of Commerce (DOC) controls their exports. While these were, in principle, exportable to nuclear facilities under islanded safeguards (as against FSS), Indian entities have faced severe restrictions in importing these not only from the U.S., owing to its “catch-all” licensing policy, but from elsewhere too because of domestic individual export control policies. “Transfers of dual-use items that could be used in enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water production facilities will be subject to the Parties’ respective applicable laws, regulations and licence policies,” says Article 5.2.
Here is an area that would call for negotiations with the DOC, perhaps under the forum of the Indo-US High Technology Cooperation Group (HTCG) to relax these controls to facilitate nuclear trade between the two countries for safeguarded facilities, which would be outside the framework of the 123 Agreement. What one can realistically expect on this front is access to dual-use items to be used in safeguarded heavy water plants but not even for the safeguarded reprocessing plant that is proposed to be built following this Agreement. Transfers to the unsafeguarded enrichment facility in any case cannot take place. Changes in NSG Guidelines may, however, ease transfers of these from elsewhere but this remains to be seen.
Prior consent to reprocessing spent fuel originating from U.S.-supplied fuel, (b) above, to extract plutonium for use in safeguarded fast breeder reactors, was perhaps the major issue to be resolved. India’s offer to establish a “new national reprocessing facility”, under safeguards in perpetuity, dedicated for safeguarded fuel clearly helped in resolving this (see Frontline, June 29). The agreement is similar to the rights given to Japan under the U.S.-Japan 123 Agreement.
Article 6 (iii) of the Indo-U.S. Agreement is concerned with reprocessing rights. The operative part reads as: “[T]he Parties grant each other consent to reprocess or otherwise alter in form or content nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material and by-product material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material or equipment so transferred…and the Parties will agree on arrangements and procedures under which such reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place in this new facility. Consultations on arrangements and procedures (A&P) will begin within six months of a request by either Party and will be concluded within one year” (emphasis added).
From the above it is clear that this grants only the “consent” to reprocess in principle which cannot be made operative and turned into a right before A&P are agreed upon. Section 131 of the AEA, titled “Subsequent Arrangements”, would seem to apply to this provision in the Agreement and this is what Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the chief negotiator for the U.S., gave to understand in his press briefing in Washington on July 27.
This implies a whole series of steps of certification by the U.S. administration and final approval by the Congress to the agreed A&P, which means that reprocessing rights are not, therefore, automatic. That is, Congressional approval of the 123 Agreement alone does not suffice though the probability of the Congress not approving does not appear high. However, Indian negotiators do not agree with this interpretation. In their opinion, reprocessing right would always be there and the A&P have to do with implementation details, such as appropriate safeguards, and, therefore, they do not have to go to the Congress for approval. This controversial perceptions of a key provision needs to be sorted out although this may not be of any great urgency. However, when actually can India make its request for operationalising its reprocessing right becomes uncertain on account of this. Article 14.9 provides for suspension of the A&P “under exceptional circumstances, as defined by the Parties”.
The clause does, however, provide for consultations to resolve the issue, “taking into account, the effects of such suspension on other aspects of cooperation”, and read with Article 14.3, it would seem to imply that “exceptional circumstances” would arise only when there is “material violation” as per the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
The italicised part in the consent to reprocess clause can be potentially serious in the event of a termination of the agreement for whatever reason, including testing. This part implies that nuclear fuel from whatever source is used in any U.S. supplied reactor, it becomes obligated to the U.S. and the consent to reprocess (or lack thereof) becomes applicable to that fuel as well.
Consider the following scenario. Following any termination of the agreement, the consent to reprocess in the future will also stand terminated. Article 16.3 grants continued consent to reprocess only as long as nuclear material subject already to reprocessing rights is on Indian territory (though there is some ambiguity how this article will be applied). Post-termination, and the consequent disruption of fuel supplies, India would be forced to source it from somewhere else, as provided for under Article 5.6(b) (ii-iv) on fuel supply assurances, to keep the U.S.-supplied reactors operating. But because the fuel is used in U.S. equipment, it is obligated to the U.S. and there is no longer any consent to reprocess spent fuel thus obligated. That is, spent fuel from a non-U.S. source used in U.S. reactors can no longer be reprocessed in the event of the termination of the Agreement. This is another issue that needs sorting out with the U.S.
“Fall-back safeguards”, issue (c), refers to application of bilaterally implemented safeguards, in conformity with IAEA principles and procedures, in case the IAEA is unable to implement the safeguards effectively. This would imply visit to safeguarded facilities by U.S. officials and inspectors. The original draft of the agreement had, like other 123 Agreements, provided for either of the parties complaining of inadequate safeguards. This, Indian negotiators, felt could lead to frivolous application of the provision leading to such charges often resulting in frequent access of Indian facilities to U.S. inspectors.
VIVEK BENDRE In Tarapur when Unit-4 went critical, on March 6, 2005, (from left) S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, M.K. Narayanan, National Security Adviser, and Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, AEC.
In the reworked agreement, Article 10.4 states, “If the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures.” While this may seem more honourable and acceptable, the change is only notional. Because, it stands to reason that, if one party complains, the other party is not going to sit back and accept the unilateral judgment of the former. Consultations with the IAEA will naturally arise to verify the charge and any decision on bilateral arrangement will depend on the pronouncement of the IAEA.
While the Indian concern about the termination of the 123 Agreement in the event of a nuclear test, issue (d), would appear to be adequately addressed to take into account national security considerations under which such a compelling situation may arise there is no absolute immunity against it. Of course, as the Indian negotiators were at pains to say, the word “test” or “explosion” does not occur anywhere in the text, it is clear from the language used in Article 14 that a nuclear test is being referred to. What the clause provides for is a one-year notice period by the party invoking the right to terminate, during which consultations between the parties (as provided for under Article 13) can be held “to consider carefully the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation of cooperation…[and] to take into account whether the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation resulted from a Party’s serious concern about a changed security environment or as a response to similar actions by other States which could impact national security.”
However, it is important to point out that while the termination of the agreement can take place over a period of one year, Article 14.2 provides for cessation of cooperation at any time after the circumstance in question arises. Indeed, this should be so because, while the 123 Agreement has to do with the AEA and could have provisions for consultations and a time line of one year, Section 102 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which will prohibit all exports to the party conducting a test, will come into play immediately, which is tantamount to a cessation of nuclear cooperation. The amendment provided for by the nuclear cooperation enabling legislation, namely the Hyde Act, is only for the AEA and not for the AECA.
However, the room for hedging provided for in the AEA can impact any decision on the cessation of exports under the AECA through a Presidential waiver. Also, depending upon the result of consultations, a Presidential waiver on cessation of cooperation in the event of a nuclear test after July 18 (following the Hyde Act), can also be given. To this extent, the impact of a test on the nuclear cooperation has been cushioned via the 123 Agreement. In the ultimate analysis, however, these situations are hypothetical because in the current circumstances it is extremely unlikely that any country would venture to conduct a test in the near term.
Section 123 a.(4) of the AEA requires that in the event of a nuclear test by the other cooperating (NNWS) party, and the consequent cessation of cooperation, the U.S. will have the “Right of Return” of nuclear material, equipment, non-nuclear material or components transferred under the 123 Agreement (issue (e) above). The agreement incorporates this right, as required by the Hyde Act, as a right conferred to both the Parties following the cessation of cooperation for any reason, including testing. It must be pointed out that this right is actually more than what the AEA or the Hyde Act demands, namely, right of return only in the event of testing. The present agreement has been forced to use such an all-inclusive language because India did not want the word “test” to occur in the agreement!
However, provisions in Article 14.5 of the agreement makes exercising the right involved and difficult by providing for consultations under the express recognition that “exercising the right shall have profound implications for their relations… Such consultations shall give special consideration to the importance of uninterrupted operation of nuclear reactors… Both Parties shall take into account the potential negative consequences of such termination on the ongoing contracts and projects initiated under this Agreement…” The Agreement incorporates the standard clause in all 123 Agreements that before the right of return is exercised and items removed from the territory, the affected party will be promptly compensated “for their market value and for the costs incurred as a consequence of such removal.” In particular for nuclear items, the agreement provides for evolving appropriate methods and arrangements for their return and the amount of compensation. These compound the problem of exercising the right of return.
Article 5.6 (a) and (b) provide for fuel supply assurances, issue (f), in case of disruption in supplies for reasons including cessation of cooperation (following a test, for instance). Significantly, Article 14.8 states: “It is not the purpose of the provisions of this Article regarding cessation of cooperation and right of return to derogate the rights of the Parties under Article 5.6.”
While multiple protective layers have thus been provided in the agreement to ensure continuous operation of reactors, including the one-year time line during which alternative mechanism of fuel supply could be firmed up through one of the three mechanisms (5.6(b)(ii-iv)) envisaged, it is far from clear that any of them is realisable, except perhaps for 5.6(b)(iii) for the creation of an Indian strategic reserve of nuclear fuel on Indian soil. But creation of such a stockpile (even in a phased manner) involves great uncertainty and huge costs (see Frontline, June 29). Similarly, there has been no instance when a country-specific fuel supply arrangement has been negotiated with the IAEA on a commercial scale, as envisaged under 5.6(b)(ii).
In the absence of more specific information, these provisions remain as vague as they were when the Prime Minister listed these in his statement after the separation plan of March 2, 2006. In fact, the drafting of this section in the agreement has been so bad that Article 5.6(b)(i) makes no sense; it seems to give the impression that the 123 Agreement is some other document. So, as of now, fuel supply assurances in the agreement appear to have only notional and political significance. More importantly, the draft India-specific safeguards agreement has to be negotiated with the IAEA, before the 123 Agreement can be sent to Congress for approval and this has to specify the “corrective measures” that India envisages to take to guard against the disruption of fuel supply when none of the above mechanisms can be worked and to ensure uninterrupted operation of reactors. Now India has not spelt out what these “corrective measures” are; in fact, it would appear that the government has not thought through this matter. Since even the NSG may desire that the IAEA safeguards are negotiated before it can consider India-specific amendments, to get safeguards worked out quickly is of paramount importance.
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R. RAMACHANDRAN
The 123 Agreement as concluded is more acceptable and domestically saleable in both countries than what it was in its original form.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/REUTERS In Washington on July 18, 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush made the joint statement on India-U.S. cooperation in nuclear, space and other issues.
NEARLY two years after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush issued the Joint Statement on July 18, 2005 that set the stage for facilitating civil nuclear cooperation and commerce between India and the United States, the agreement formalising the stated intent was concluded on July 20 and unveiled on August 1.
The finalisation of the text of the agreement, known as the ‘123 Agreement’ after Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act (AEA) which governs international nuclear cooperation by the U.S., took place in Washington during July 17-20. This was the fifth round of negotiations after the process began in June 2006, which was extended beyond the originally scheduled three days. According to reports, the talks, which had in fact been declared closed with “substantial progress made on the outstanding issues”, were resumed after Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice-President, met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and pronounced that the deal be somehow concluded and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice directly intervened to make it happen.
“The commitments expressed in the Joint Statements of July 18, 2005 and March 2, 2006 have been fully reflected in the final text,” stated Narayanan, who led the Indian delegation at the press briefing on July 27. Likewise, the fact sheet issued by the Indian government claimed that the text met the concerns of both sides and fulfilled all the assurances made by the Prime Minister on August 17, 2006.
In what follows, we discuss whether this is indeed true of the negotiated Agreement. The outstanding issues – from the standpoint of Prime Minister’s assurances – that remained to be resolved during the negotiations were the following: (a) “full civil nuclear cooperation”, where “full” in the Indian government’s interpretation implied “all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle” (emphasis added); (b) the Indian right to reprocess (under safeguards) the spent fuel resulting from nuclear material of U.S. origin; (c) “fall-back safeguards” involving bilateral arrangements if safeguards implementation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are seen to be inadequate; (d) maintenance of India’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing being made binding by linking it to the 123 Agreement through its termination following a test; (e) the U.S. right of return of material and equipment supplied under the agreement following an Indian nuclear test and the consequent cessation of cooperation; and, (f) assurance of continued fuel supply (for the lifetime of safeguarded reactors) given by Bush on March 2, 2006, following the Indian civil-military separation plan and placing civilian nuclear facilities under safeguards in perpetuity in the event of termination of the agreement for reasons including an Indian nuclear test.
To claim that all the assurances of the Prime Minister and all the above concerns have been fully met in the final 123 Agreement is misleading because if India had not yielded from its original position on these contentious issues (see Frontline, June 29), there would have been no agreement. However, it must be admitted that the negotiators did a commendable job in drafting the agreement in a language that makes it more acceptable and domestically saleable (in both countries) than what it was in its original form. Indeed, the language used and its implications are quite unlike any of the earlier 123 Agreements that the U.S. has signed with other countries.
It must, however, be realised that if India wants such a deal, notwithstanding the conditions under which the agreement can be effected, this may be the best that one can hope to get given the constraints of U.S. domestic laws that the agreement, as its preamble spells out clearly, has to conform to. Also, it is better to have the best possible, but imperfect, agreement – if we want to engage in international nuclear trade – on which basis the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) can make India-specific amendments to its export guidelines than to wait for the perfect agreement which may never happen. The question whether we do need the deal is indeed moot but that will not be addressed here.
The real substantive gains from India’s point of view are the consent to reprocess spent fuel in principle and the substantial room for negotiations and time buffer built into the Agreement before its possible termination even following a nuclear test. The former became possible after India recently offered to place a dedicated reprocessing facility for reprocessing safeguarded spent fuel under safeguards in perpetuity (see Frontline, June 29). Even here there are ambiguities that perhaps need to be clarified through bilateral discussions. The resolutions as regards the other issues are either partial or only apparent because of the careful wording of the relevant clauses in the 123 text.
Consider (a) above. The preamble to the 123 Agreement itself denies “full civilian nuclear cooperation”, as interpreted by India. The phrase is elaborated to mean, “covering aspects of the associated nuclear fuel cycle”, with the word all in (a) above dropped. This is reiterated under Article 2 on Scope of Cooperation (Clause 2.2d). According to reliable sources this has the implication that reprocessing and enrichment technology or equipment will not be transferred. Significantly, however, according to Clause 2.2(e), the scope will include the “development of a strategic reserve” of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India’s reactors, which is of relevance to issue (f) above.
To reiterate that the agreement will have no bearing on the strategic or unsafeguarded or military nuclear activities of either party, Clause 2.4 says: “[N]othing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as affecting the rights of the Parties to use for their own purposes nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by them independent of any nuclear material… transferred to them pursuant to this Agreement. The Agreement shall be implemented in a manner so as not to hinder or otherwise interfere with any other activities involving the use of nuclear material… and military nuclear facilities produced, acquired or developed by them independent of this Agreement for their own purposes.”
The Prime Minister had also stated in Parliament: “The central imperative in our discussions with the United States on civil nuclear cooperation is to ensure the complete and irreversible removal of existing restrictions imposed on India through iniquitous restrictive trading regimes over the years.” India being a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) as per U.S. law, which follows from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such an expectation is highly unrealistic. In particular, export of nuclear ‘Trigger List’ items, which are directly used in nuclear fuel cycle activities, requires full-scope safeguards (FSS) both under U.S. law and under Guidelines I of the NSG. However, Article 4.2 of the 123 Agreement ensures that appropriate export licences are issued for “sound and efficient administration of this Agreement” by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the licensing authority for such items.
Of course, such trade with the U.S. can commence only if the NSG too makes its India-specific amendments to the Guidelines to facilitate such transfers to India, which will also enable trade in such items with other countries. However, Article 5.2 spells out restrictions as regards transfer of technology and equipment relating to reprocessing, enrichment and heavy water production, normally referred to in U.S. regulations as sensitive nuclear technologies (SNTs). Interestingly, however, in the present 123 Agreement, heavy water technology and equipment have been separated and SNT refers only to reprocessing and enrichment technologies. This, according to informed sources, was to facilitate the possibility of accessing equipment and critical components for heavy water production in which India’s pre-eminence is well demonstrated, if not for reprocessing. But, in any case, any envisaged transfer of SNTs and heavy water technology and equipment cannot be automatic, and according to Article 5.2, “may be transferred only pursuant to an amendment to this Agreement”. This implies a Congressional approval and, therefore, a hurdle. If the amendments to NSG Guidelines too strictly follow the provisions of the 123 Agreement, these too may not facilitate transfers of these from elsewhere, in particular for the proposed dedicated reprocessing facility.
One of the issues raised by the Left parties in their statement on August 7 pertains to the restrictions on nuclear-related dual-use items as well. Transfer of nuclear dual-use items globally are controlled by Guidelines II of the NSG. In the U.S., the Department of Commerce (DOC) controls their exports. While these were, in principle, exportable to nuclear facilities under islanded safeguards (as against FSS), Indian entities have faced severe restrictions in importing these not only from the U.S., owing to its “catch-all” licensing policy, but from elsewhere too because of domestic individual export control policies. “Transfers of dual-use items that could be used in enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water production facilities will be subject to the Parties’ respective applicable laws, regulations and licence policies,” says Article 5.2.
Here is an area that would call for negotiations with the DOC, perhaps under the forum of the Indo-US High Technology Cooperation Group (HTCG) to relax these controls to facilitate nuclear trade between the two countries for safeguarded facilities, which would be outside the framework of the 123 Agreement. What one can realistically expect on this front is access to dual-use items to be used in safeguarded heavy water plants but not even for the safeguarded reprocessing plant that is proposed to be built following this Agreement. Transfers to the unsafeguarded enrichment facility in any case cannot take place. Changes in NSG Guidelines may, however, ease transfers of these from elsewhere but this remains to be seen.
Prior consent to reprocessing spent fuel originating from U.S.-supplied fuel, (b) above, to extract plutonium for use in safeguarded fast breeder reactors, was perhaps the major issue to be resolved. India’s offer to establish a “new national reprocessing facility”, under safeguards in perpetuity, dedicated for safeguarded fuel clearly helped in resolving this (see Frontline, June 29). The agreement is similar to the rights given to Japan under the U.S.-Japan 123 Agreement.
Article 6 (iii) of the Indo-U.S. Agreement is concerned with reprocessing rights. The operative part reads as: “[T]he Parties grant each other consent to reprocess or otherwise alter in form or content nuclear material transferred pursuant to this Agreement and nuclear material and by-product material used in or produced through the use of nuclear material, non-nuclear material or equipment so transferred…and the Parties will agree on arrangements and procedures under which such reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place in this new facility. Consultations on arrangements and procedures (A&P) will begin within six months of a request by either Party and will be concluded within one year” (emphasis added).
From the above it is clear that this grants only the “consent” to reprocess in principle which cannot be made operative and turned into a right before A&P are agreed upon. Section 131 of the AEA, titled “Subsequent Arrangements”, would seem to apply to this provision in the Agreement and this is what Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the chief negotiator for the U.S., gave to understand in his press briefing in Washington on July 27.
This implies a whole series of steps of certification by the U.S. administration and final approval by the Congress to the agreed A&P, which means that reprocessing rights are not, therefore, automatic. That is, Congressional approval of the 123 Agreement alone does not suffice though the probability of the Congress not approving does not appear high. However, Indian negotiators do not agree with this interpretation. In their opinion, reprocessing right would always be there and the A&P have to do with implementation details, such as appropriate safeguards, and, therefore, they do not have to go to the Congress for approval. This controversial perceptions of a key provision needs to be sorted out although this may not be of any great urgency. However, when actually can India make its request for operationalising its reprocessing right becomes uncertain on account of this. Article 14.9 provides for suspension of the A&P “under exceptional circumstances, as defined by the Parties”.
The clause does, however, provide for consultations to resolve the issue, “taking into account, the effects of such suspension on other aspects of cooperation”, and read with Article 14.3, it would seem to imply that “exceptional circumstances” would arise only when there is “material violation” as per the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
The italicised part in the consent to reprocess clause can be potentially serious in the event of a termination of the agreement for whatever reason, including testing. This part implies that nuclear fuel from whatever source is used in any U.S. supplied reactor, it becomes obligated to the U.S. and the consent to reprocess (or lack thereof) becomes applicable to that fuel as well.
Consider the following scenario. Following any termination of the agreement, the consent to reprocess in the future will also stand terminated. Article 16.3 grants continued consent to reprocess only as long as nuclear material subject already to reprocessing rights is on Indian territory (though there is some ambiguity how this article will be applied). Post-termination, and the consequent disruption of fuel supplies, India would be forced to source it from somewhere else, as provided for under Article 5.6(b) (ii-iv) on fuel supply assurances, to keep the U.S.-supplied reactors operating. But because the fuel is used in U.S. equipment, it is obligated to the U.S. and there is no longer any consent to reprocess spent fuel thus obligated. That is, spent fuel from a non-U.S. source used in U.S. reactors can no longer be reprocessed in the event of the termination of the Agreement. This is another issue that needs sorting out with the U.S.
“Fall-back safeguards”, issue (c), refers to application of bilaterally implemented safeguards, in conformity with IAEA principles and procedures, in case the IAEA is unable to implement the safeguards effectively. This would imply visit to safeguarded facilities by U.S. officials and inspectors. The original draft of the agreement had, like other 123 Agreements, provided for either of the parties complaining of inadequate safeguards. This, Indian negotiators, felt could lead to frivolous application of the provision leading to such charges often resulting in frequent access of Indian facilities to U.S. inspectors.
VIVEK BENDRE In Tarapur when Unit-4 went critical, on March 6, 2005, (from left) S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, M.K. Narayanan, National Security Adviser, and Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, AEC.
In the reworked agreement, Article 10.4 states, “If the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures.” While this may seem more honourable and acceptable, the change is only notional. Because, it stands to reason that, if one party complains, the other party is not going to sit back and accept the unilateral judgment of the former. Consultations with the IAEA will naturally arise to verify the charge and any decision on bilateral arrangement will depend on the pronouncement of the IAEA.
While the Indian concern about the termination of the 123 Agreement in the event of a nuclear test, issue (d), would appear to be adequately addressed to take into account national security considerations under which such a compelling situation may arise there is no absolute immunity against it. Of course, as the Indian negotiators were at pains to say, the word “test” or “explosion” does not occur anywhere in the text, it is clear from the language used in Article 14 that a nuclear test is being referred to. What the clause provides for is a one-year notice period by the party invoking the right to terminate, during which consultations between the parties (as provided for under Article 13) can be held “to consider carefully the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation of cooperation…[and] to take into account whether the circumstances that may lead to termination or cessation resulted from a Party’s serious concern about a changed security environment or as a response to similar actions by other States which could impact national security.”
However, it is important to point out that while the termination of the agreement can take place over a period of one year, Article 14.2 provides for cessation of cooperation at any time after the circumstance in question arises. Indeed, this should be so because, while the 123 Agreement has to do with the AEA and could have provisions for consultations and a time line of one year, Section 102 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which will prohibit all exports to the party conducting a test, will come into play immediately, which is tantamount to a cessation of nuclear cooperation. The amendment provided for by the nuclear cooperation enabling legislation, namely the Hyde Act, is only for the AEA and not for the AECA.
However, the room for hedging provided for in the AEA can impact any decision on the cessation of exports under the AECA through a Presidential waiver. Also, depending upon the result of consultations, a Presidential waiver on cessation of cooperation in the event of a nuclear test after July 18 (following the Hyde Act), can also be given. To this extent, the impact of a test on the nuclear cooperation has been cushioned via the 123 Agreement. In the ultimate analysis, however, these situations are hypothetical because in the current circumstances it is extremely unlikely that any country would venture to conduct a test in the near term.
Section 123 a.(4) of the AEA requires that in the event of a nuclear test by the other cooperating (NNWS) party, and the consequent cessation of cooperation, the U.S. will have the “Right of Return” of nuclear material, equipment, non-nuclear material or components transferred under the 123 Agreement (issue (e) above). The agreement incorporates this right, as required by the Hyde Act, as a right conferred to both the Parties following the cessation of cooperation for any reason, including testing. It must be pointed out that this right is actually more than what the AEA or the Hyde Act demands, namely, right of return only in the event of testing. The present agreement has been forced to use such an all-inclusive language because India did not want the word “test” to occur in the agreement!
However, provisions in Article 14.5 of the agreement makes exercising the right involved and difficult by providing for consultations under the express recognition that “exercising the right shall have profound implications for their relations… Such consultations shall give special consideration to the importance of uninterrupted operation of nuclear reactors… Both Parties shall take into account the potential negative consequences of such termination on the ongoing contracts and projects initiated under this Agreement…” The Agreement incorporates the standard clause in all 123 Agreements that before the right of return is exercised and items removed from the territory, the affected party will be promptly compensated “for their market value and for the costs incurred as a consequence of such removal.” In particular for nuclear items, the agreement provides for evolving appropriate methods and arrangements for their return and the amount of compensation. These compound the problem of exercising the right of return.
Article 5.6 (a) and (b) provide for fuel supply assurances, issue (f), in case of disruption in supplies for reasons including cessation of cooperation (following a test, for instance). Significantly, Article 14.8 states: “It is not the purpose of the provisions of this Article regarding cessation of cooperation and right of return to derogate the rights of the Parties under Article 5.6.”
While multiple protective layers have thus been provided in the agreement to ensure continuous operation of reactors, including the one-year time line during which alternative mechanism of fuel supply could be firmed up through one of the three mechanisms (5.6(b)(ii-iv)) envisaged, it is far from clear that any of them is realisable, except perhaps for 5.6(b)(iii) for the creation of an Indian strategic reserve of nuclear fuel on Indian soil. But creation of such a stockpile (even in a phased manner) involves great uncertainty and huge costs (see Frontline, June 29). Similarly, there has been no instance when a country-specific fuel supply arrangement has been negotiated with the IAEA on a commercial scale, as envisaged under 5.6(b)(ii).
In the absence of more specific information, these provisions remain as vague as they were when the Prime Minister listed these in his statement after the separation plan of March 2, 2006. In fact, the drafting of this section in the agreement has been so bad that Article 5.6(b)(i) makes no sense; it seems to give the impression that the 123 Agreement is some other document. So, as of now, fuel supply assurances in the agreement appear to have only notional and political significance. More importantly, the draft India-specific safeguards agreement has to be negotiated with the IAEA, before the 123 Agreement can be sent to Congress for approval and this has to specify the “corrective measures” that India envisages to take to guard against the disruption of fuel supply when none of the above mechanisms can be worked and to ensure uninterrupted operation of reactors. Now India has not spelt out what these “corrective measures” are; in fact, it would appear that the government has not thought through this matter. Since even the NSG may desire that the IAEA safeguards are negotiated before it can consider India-specific amendments, to get safeguards worked out quickly is of paramount importance.
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THE n effet
THE NUCLEAR WHETHER CLEAR OR UNCLEAR?
A CORELATED STUDY:
Concerned neighbours
REACTIONS to the India-U.S. nuclear agreement have been generally muted in foreign capitals. Pakistan has been the only country that has expressed misgivings. Its National Command Authority, chaired by President Pervez Musharraf, said in a statement that the agreement would destabilise the Indian subcontinent and fuel a nuclear arms race. It said the deal “would enable India to produce significant quantities of fissile material and nuclear weapons from unsafeguarded nuclear reactors”.
The United States’ Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns was quick to assure the international community that the deal would put India’s planned nuclear reprocessing facility under international safeguards for perpetuity. He also gave the assurance that nuclear fuel shipped to India from the U.S. or any other country would be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Burns said there was “no reason” why the India-U.S. agreement should become a “divisive issue” between Washington and Islamabad.
The response from Beijing was cautious. The Chinese leadership is fully aware that Washington’s game plan for the region is to build up an anti-Beijing alliance. Washington has also been exploiting the Indian establishment’s phobia against China’s growing power. In 1998, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government sought to justify the nuclear tests India conducted in May that year on the grounds that India faced a threat from China.
However, since then, relations between the two countries have improved significantly. China may soon emerge as India’s biggest trading partner. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, reacting to the India-U.S. agreement, said Beijing was prepared for “creative thinking” on the issue in tandem with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
“China believes that countries can develop cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy abiding by their respective international obligations,” the spokesman said. Beijing has not indicated the stance it will take at the NSG meeting where the deal is likely to be on the top of the agenda. The spokesman only expressed the hope that “creative thinking” will help the international community to handle the issue properly.
Beijing has indicated that it will adopt a “flexible attitude” towards the deal. China had earlier been of the view that India should first be asked to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) before the international community gives the deal the go-ahead.
Russia had, from the outset, said it had no problems with the deal. Russian officials have maintained that India is a big market and there is considerable scope for the sale of Russian-made nuclear reactors. This seems to be the view of Germany and France too. Though American companies are likely to be given priority, New Delhi is expected to sign contracts with companies from Russia and Western Europe also for the construction of nuclear power stations.
However, Moscow and Beijing are worried about the growing strategic ties between India and the West. As recent developments in Eastern Europe have shown, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) seems to be on a collision course with Moscow. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) wants to build up a countervailing force in the Asian region. NATO forces are now all over Asia though it was meant to be confined to the Northern Atlantic region.
Leading neo-conservative figures in the U.S. have written about the need for the U.S. to project its military superiority to assert its hegemony over Russia and China. Vice-President Dick Cheney, a leading neo-conservative figure in the U.S. government, played a key role in clinching the nuclear deal. The Economist, in an editorial on the subject, wrote that the “fundamental impulse” behind the deal was the China factor.
An article in the Armed Forces Journal in the U.S. noted that the U.S., after its political and military fiasco in Iraq, needed new friends, especially in Asia, to deal with an increasingly assertive China and an unstable West Asia. “Give New Delhi the nuclear technology it wants, our diplomats argue, and the U.S. gets access to India as a strategic partner of a billion citizens,” writes Henry Sokolski, the author of the article.
India is now preparing to participate in the quadrilateral military exercises involving the U.S., Japan and Australia. Russia and China are also involved in a similar exercise. In the second week of August, under the banner of the SCO, the two countries, along with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, participated in a massive military exercise.
Moscow is also worried that the nuclear deal would help the U.S. corner the lucrative Indian arms bazaar. India is currently on a shopping spree for big-ticket items like combat jets and ships. The President of the U.S.-India Business Council, Ron Somers, said the deal would provide “a major opportunity for U.S. and Indian companies”. Somers had earlier said the deal would create 27,000 high-paying jobs in the next 10 years in the U.S. nuclear industry, which has not been doing well in recent years.
Washington has assured New Delhi that it will lobby vigorously in forums such as the NSG to get international approval for the deal. But there still could be significant holdouts in the NSG. Countries like Finland and Sweden are known to be unhappy about the deal. The Prime Minster of Finland, while interacting with Indian journalists in Helsinki in June last year, was non-committal about extending support to the nuclear deal in the NSG.
South African officials told Frontline that they were studying the agreement carefully. They emphasised that the South African government was not against the peaceful use of atomic energy. South Africa is itself going ahead with pla ns to construct nuclear power stations. However, the officials said it would be difficult for their government to accept the agreement if it promoted weaponisation. South Africa will be chairing the next NSG meeting. New Delhi has started sending emissaries to different world capitals to lobby support. Washington has announced that it would use its influence to the maximum to get the NSG to approve the deal.
Some members of the NSG are not happy with the growing penchant of the U.S. to rewrite international treaties unilaterally. Many governments and international disarmament groups are of the view that the nuclear agreement with India is the latest in a series of U.S. actions that have undermined the NPT. “It has the dangerous potential of triggering a nuclear arms race among India, Pakistan and China, with disastrous consequences for Asian peace and stability and Asia’s economy,” former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala told the media in New York.
John Cherian
REACTIONS to the India-U.S. nuclear agreement have been generally muted in foreign capitals. Pakistan has been the only country that has expressed misgivings. Its National Command Authority, chaired by President Pervez Musharraf, said in a statement that the agreement would destabilise the Indian subcontinent and fuel a nuclear arms race. It said the deal “would enable India to produce significant quantities of fissile material and nuclear weapons from unsafeguarded nuclear reactors”.
The United States’ Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns was quick to assure the international community that the deal would put India’s planned nuclear reprocessing facility under international safeguards for perpetuity. He also gave the assurance that nuclear fuel shipped to India from the U.S. or any other country would be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Burns said there was “no reason” why the India-U.S. agreement should become a “divisive issue” between Washington and Islamabad.
The response from Beijing was cautious. The Chinese leadership is fully aware that Washington’s game plan for the region is to build up an anti-Beijing alliance. Washington has also been exploiting the Indian establishment’s phobia against China’s growing power. In 1998, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government sought to justify the nuclear tests India conducted in May that year on the grounds that India faced a threat from China.
However, since then, relations between the two countries have improved significantly. China may soon emerge as India’s biggest trading partner. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, reacting to the India-U.S. agreement, said Beijing was prepared for “creative thinking” on the issue in tandem with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
“China believes that countries can develop cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy abiding by their respective international obligations,” the spokesman said. Beijing has not indicated the stance it will take at the NSG meeting where the deal is likely to be on the top of the agenda. The spokesman only expressed the hope that “creative thinking” will help the international community to handle the issue properly.
Beijing has indicated that it will adopt a “flexible attitude” towards the deal. China had earlier been of the view that India should first be asked to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) before the international community gives the deal the go-ahead.
Russia had, from the outset, said it had no problems with the deal. Russian officials have maintained that India is a big market and there is considerable scope for the sale of Russian-made nuclear reactors. This seems to be the view of Germany and France too. Though American companies are likely to be given priority, New Delhi is expected to sign contracts with companies from Russia and Western Europe also for the construction of nuclear power stations.
However, Moscow and Beijing are worried about the growing strategic ties between India and the West. As recent developments in Eastern Europe have shown, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) seems to be on a collision course with Moscow. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) wants to build up a countervailing force in the Asian region. NATO forces are now all over Asia though it was meant to be confined to the Northern Atlantic region.
Leading neo-conservative figures in the U.S. have written about the need for the U.S. to project its military superiority to assert its hegemony over Russia and China. Vice-President Dick Cheney, a leading neo-conservative figure in the U.S. government, played a key role in clinching the nuclear deal. The Economist, in an editorial on the subject, wrote that the “fundamental impulse” behind the deal was the China factor.
An article in the Armed Forces Journal in the U.S. noted that the U.S., after its political and military fiasco in Iraq, needed new friends, especially in Asia, to deal with an increasingly assertive China and an unstable West Asia. “Give New Delhi the nuclear technology it wants, our diplomats argue, and the U.S. gets access to India as a strategic partner of a billion citizens,” writes Henry Sokolski, the author of the article.
India is now preparing to participate in the quadrilateral military exercises involving the U.S., Japan and Australia. Russia and China are also involved in a similar exercise. In the second week of August, under the banner of the SCO, the two countries, along with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, participated in a massive military exercise.
Moscow is also worried that the nuclear deal would help the U.S. corner the lucrative Indian arms bazaar. India is currently on a shopping spree for big-ticket items like combat jets and ships. The President of the U.S.-India Business Council, Ron Somers, said the deal would provide “a major opportunity for U.S. and Indian companies”. Somers had earlier said the deal would create 27,000 high-paying jobs in the next 10 years in the U.S. nuclear industry, which has not been doing well in recent years.
Washington has assured New Delhi that it will lobby vigorously in forums such as the NSG to get international approval for the deal. But there still could be significant holdouts in the NSG. Countries like Finland and Sweden are known to be unhappy about the deal. The Prime Minster of Finland, while interacting with Indian journalists in Helsinki in June last year, was non-committal about extending support to the nuclear deal in the NSG.
South African officials told Frontline that they were studying the agreement carefully. They emphasised that the South African government was not against the peaceful use of atomic energy. South Africa is itself going ahead with pla ns to construct nuclear power stations. However, the officials said it would be difficult for their government to accept the agreement if it promoted weaponisation. South Africa will be chairing the next NSG meeting. New Delhi has started sending emissaries to different world capitals to lobby support. Washington has announced that it would use its influence to the maximum to get the NSG to approve the deal.
Some members of the NSG are not happy with the growing penchant of the U.S. to rewrite international treaties unilaterally. Many governments and international disarmament groups are of the view that the nuclear agreement with India is the latest in a series of U.S. actions that have undermined the NPT. “It has the dangerous potential of triggering a nuclear arms race among India, Pakistan and China, with disastrous consequences for Asian peace and stability and Asia’s economy,” former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala told the media in New York.
John Cherian
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