Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Indo-Us Civilian Nuclear Agreement” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Indo-Us Civilian Nuclear Agreement

The Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, known as the Indo-US nuclear .1 deal, refers to a bilateral accord on civil nuclear cooperation between the United States of America and the Republic of India. The framework for this agreement was a July 18, 2005 joint statement by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush, under which India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and place all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and, in exchange, the United States agreed to work towards full civil nuclear cooperation with India. This US-India deal took more than three years to come to fruition as it had to go through several complex stages, including amendment of U.S. domestic law, a civil-military nuclear Separation Plan in India, an India-IAEA safeguards (inspection) agreement and the grant of an exemption for India by the Nuclear Supplies Group, an export-control cartel that had been formed mainly in response to India’s first nuclear facilities that India has identified as “civil” and permits broad civil nuclear cooperation, while excluding the transfer of “sensitive” equipment and technologies, including civil enrichment and reprocessing items even under IAEA safeguards. On August 18, 2008 the IAEA Board of Governors approved, and on February 2, 2009, India signed an India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA. Once India brings this agreement into force, inspections will begin in a phased manner on the 35 civilian nuclear installations India has identified in its Separation Plan.

The nuclear deal was widely seen as a legacy-building effort by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh. But while the deal had to pass muster with the U.S. Congress twice (once when the Hyde Act was passed in late 2006 to amend U.S. domestic law and then when the final deal-related package was approved in October 2008). Singh blocked the Indian Parliament from scrutinizing the deal. The deal proved very contentious in India and threatened at one time to topple Singh’s government, which survived a confidence vote in Parliament in July 2008 by roping in a regional party as a coalition partner in place of the leftist bloc that had bolted.

Through its denial of civil enrichment and reprocessing technology and equipment, the final deal does not offer India the full cooperation the original agreement-in-principle had promised. Also, another plank that India would assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology like the United States has proven to be a rhetorical one.

On August 1, 2008, the IAEA approved the safeguards agreement with India, after which the United States approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant a waiver to India to commence civilian nuclear trade. The 45-nation NSG granted the waiver to India on September 6, 2008 allowing it to access civilian nuclear technology and fuel from other countries. The implementation of this waiver makes India the only known country with nuclear weapons which is not a party to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but is still allowed to carry out nuclear commence with the rest of the world.

The 123 agreement defines the terms and conditions for bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation, and requires separate approvals by the U.S. Congress and by Indian cabinet ministers. According to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, the agreement will help India meet its global of adding 25,000 MW of nuclear power capacity through imports of nuclear reactors and fuel by 2020.

After the terms of 123 agreement were concluded on July 27, 2007, it ran to trouble because of stiff opposition in India from the communist allies of the ruling United Progressive Alliance. The government survived a confidence vote in the parliament on July 22, 2008 by 275-256 votes in the backdrop of defections from both camps to the opposite camps. The deal also had faced opposition from non-proliferation activities, anti-nuclear organisations, and some states within the Nuclear Supplies Group. A which is inconsistent with the Hyde Act and does not place restrictions on India has also faced opposition in the U.S. House. In February, 2008 U.S.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that any agreement would be “consistent with the obligations of the Hyde Act”. The bill was signed on October 8, 2008.

Parties to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have a recognized right of access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and an obligation to cooperate on civilian nuclear technology. Separately, the Nuclear Supplies Group had agreed on guidelines for nuclear exports, including reactors and fuel. Those guidelines condition such exports on comprehensive safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which are designed to verify that nuclear energy is not diverted from peaceful use to weapons programmes. Though neither India, Israel, nor Pakistan have signed the NPT, India argues that instead of addressing the control objective of universal and comprehensive non-proliferation, the treaty creates a club of “nuclear haves” and a larger group of “nuclear have-nots” by restricting the legal possession of nuclear weapons to those states that tested them before 1967, who alone are free to possess and multiply their nuclear stockpiles. India insists on a comprehensive action plan for a nuclear-free world within a specific time-frame and has also adopted a voluntary “no first use policy.”

In response to a growing Chinese nuclear arsenal, India conducted a nuclear test in 1974 (called “peaceful nuclear explosion” and explicitly not for “offensive” first-strike military purposes but which could be used as a “peaceful deterrence”). Led by the U.S., other states have set up an informal group, the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG), to control exports of nuclear materials, equipment and technology. Consequently, India was left outside the international nuclear order, which forced India to develop its own resources for each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle and power generation, including next generation reactors such as fast breeder reactors and a thorium breeder reactor known as the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor. In addition to impelling India to achieve success in developing these new reactor technologies, the sanctions also provided India with the impetus to continue developing its own nuclear weapons technology with a specific goal of achieving self-sufficiency for all key components for weapon’s design. testing and production.

Given that India is estimated to possess reserves of about 80,000-112.369 tons of uranium. India has more than enough fissile material to supply its nuclear weapons programme, even if it restricted Plutonium production to only 8 of the country’s 17 current reactors, and then further restricted Plutonium production to only ‘A of the fuel core of these reactors. According to the calculations of one of the key advisers to the US Nuclear deal negotiating team, Ashley Tellis, Operating India’s eight unsafe guarded PHWRs in such a [conservative] regime would bequeath New Delhi with some 12, 135-13,370 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to produce between 2,023-2,228 nuclear weapons over and above those already existing in the Indian arsenal. Although no Indian analyst, let alone a policy maker, has even advocated any nuclear inventory that even remotely approximates such numbers, this heuristic exercise confirms that New Delhi has the capability to produce a gigantic nuclear arsenal while subsisting well within the lowest estimates of its known uranium reserves.

However, because the amount of nuclear fuel required for the electricity generation sector is far greater than that required to maintain a nuclear weapons programme, and since India’s estimated reserve of uranium represents only 1% of the world’s known uranium reserves, the NSG’s uranium export restrictions mainly affected Indian nuclear power generation capacity. Specifically, the NSG sanctions challenge India’s long-term plans to expand and fuel its civilian nuclear power generation capacity from its current output of about 4GWe (Giga Watt electricity) to a power output of 20GWe by 2020; assuming the planned expansion used conventional Uranium/ Plutonium fueled heavy water and light water nuclear power plants.

Consequently, India’s nuclear isolation constrained expansion of its civil nuclear programme, but left India relatively immune to foreign reactions to a prospective nuclear test. Partly for this reason, but mainly due to continued unchecked covert nuclear and missile proliferation activities between Pakistan, China and North Korea, India conducted five more nuclear tests in May, 1998, at Pokhran.

India was subject to international sanctions after its May 1998 nuclear tests. However, due to the size of the Indian economy and its relatively large domestic sector, these sanctions had little impact on India, with India’s GDP growth increasing from 4.8% in 1997-98 (prior to sanctions) to 6.6% (during sanctions) in 1998-99. Consequently, at the end of 2001, the Bush Administration decided to drop all sanctions of India. Although India achieved its strategic objectives from the Pokhran nuclear weapons tests in 1998, it continued to find its civil nuclear programme isolated internationally.

Economic Aspect Of The Deal

Financially, the U.S. also expects that such a deal could spur India’s economy and bring in $ 150 billion in the next decade for nuclear power plants, of which the U.S. wants a share. It is India’s stated objective to increase the production of nuclear power generation from its present capacity of 4,000 MWe to 20,000 MWe in the next decade. However, the developmental economic advising firm Dalberg, which advises the IMF and the World Bank, moreover, has done its own analysis of the economic value of investing in nuclear power development in India. The conclusion is that for the next 20 years such investments are likely to be far less valuable economically or environmentally than a variety of other measures to increase electricity production in India. They have noted that U.S. nuclear vendors cannot sell any reactors to India unless and until India caps third party liabilities or establishes a credible liability pool to protect U.S. firms from being sued in the case of an accident or a terrorist act of sabotage against nuclear plants.

Strategic Aspect Of The Deal

Since the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon, along with certain U.S. ambassadors such as Robert Blackwill, had requested increased strategic ties with India and a dehyphenization of Pakistan with India, i.e. having separate policies towards India and Pakistan rather than just an “India-Pakistan” policy. The United States also sees India as a viable counter-weight to the growing influence of China, and a potential client for which it must compete with Russia.

While India is self-sufficient in thorium, possessing 25% of the world’s known and economically viable thorium, it possesses a meager I% of the similarly calculated global uranium reserves. Indian support for cooperation with the U.S. centres on the issue of obtaining a steady supply of sufficient energy for the economy to grow. Indian opposition to the pact centres on the concessions that would need to be made, as well as the likely de-prioritization of research into a thorium fuel cycle if uranium becomes highly available given the well-understood utilization of uranium in a nuclear fuel cycle.

On August 3, 2007, both the countries released the full text of the 123 agreement. Nicholas Burns, the chief negotiator of the India-United States nuclear deal, said the U.S. has the right to terminate the deal if India tests a nuclear weapon and that no part of the agreement recognizes India as a nuclear weapons state.

Iaea Approval and Nsg Waiver The Iaea

Board of Governors approved the safeguards agreement on August 1, 2008, and the 45-state Nuclear Suppliers Group next had to approve a policy allowing nuclear cooperation with India. U.S. President

Bush could then make the necessary certifications and sought seek final approval by the U.S. Congress. There were objections from Pakistan, Iran, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and Austria at the IAEA meeting.

On September 6, 2008 India was granted the waiver at the NSG meeting held in Vienna, Austria. The consensus was arrived at after overcoming misgivings expressed by Austria, Ireland and New Zealand and is in unprecedented step in giving exemption to a country which has not signed the NPT and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Indian Reactions

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington D.C. on September 26, 2008 to celebrate the conclusion of the agreement with U.S. President George W. Bush. He also visited France to convey his appreciation for the country’s stance. India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee expressed his deep appreciation for India’s allies in the NSG, especially the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, South Africa and Brazil for helping India achieve NSG’s consensus on the nuclear deal.

BhartiyaJanta Party’s Yashwant Sinha, who also formerly held the post of Indian External Affairs Minister, criticized the Indian government’s decision to seek NSG’s consensus and remarked that “India has walked into the non-proliferation trap set up by the U.S., we have given up our right to test nuclear weapons forever, it has been surrendered by the government.” However, another prominent member of the same party and India’s former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra supported the development at the NSG and said that the waiver granted made “no prohibition” on India to conduct nuclear tests in the future. Former President of India and noted Indian scientist, APJ Abdul Kalam, also supported the agreement and remarked that New Delhi may break its “voluntary moratorium” on further nuclear tests in “supreme national interest.” However, analyst MK Bhadrakumar demurred. He said that the consensus at NSG was achieved on the “basis” of Pranab Mukherjee’s commitment to India’s voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing and by doing so, India has entered into a “multilateral commitment” bringing it within “the ambit of the CTBT and NPT.”

The NSG consensus was welcomed by several major Indian companies. Major Indian corporations like Videocon Group, Tata Power and Jindal Power saw a $40 billion (U.S.) nuclear energy market in India in the next 10-15 years. On a more optimistic note, some of India’s largest and most well-respected corporations like Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, National Thermal Power Corporation and Larsen and Toubro were eyeing a $ 100 billion (U.S.) business in this sector over the same time period. According to Hindustan Times, nuclear energy will produce 52,000 MW of electricity in India by 2020.

Other Reactions Over The Issue

More than 150 non-proliferation activities and anti-nuclear organizations called for tightening the initial NSG agreement to prevent harming the current global non-proliferation regime. Among the steps called for were:

• Ceasing cooperation if India conducts nuclear tests or withdraws from safeguards;
• Supplying only an amount of fuel which is commensurate with ordinary reactor operating requirements;
• Expressly prohibiting the transfer of enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production items to India;
• Opposing any special safeguards exemptions for India;
• Conditioning the waiver on India stopping fissile production and legally binding itself not to conduct nuclear tests;
• Not allowing India to reprocess nuclear fuel supplied by a member state in a facility that is not under permanent and unconditional IAEA safeguards;
• Agreeing that all bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements between an NSG Member-state and India explicitly prohibit the replication or use of such technology in any unsafeguarded Indian facilities;

Passage in Congress

On September 28, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 298-117 to approve the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. On Octobers 1, 2008, the U.S. Senate voted 86-13 to approve the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. The Arms Control Association said the agreement fails to make clear that an Indian nuclear test would prompt the U.S. to cease nuclear trade, however, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that any nuclear test by India would result in the “most serious consequences”, including automatic cut-off of U.S. cooperation as well as a number of other sanctions.

After Senate approved, U.S. President George W. Bush said the deal would “strengthen our global nuclear nonproliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in a responsible manner. U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama (presently the President of US) and John McCain, as well as Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden, voted in support of the bill. U.S. President George W. Bush signed the legislation on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal into law on. October 8. The new law, called the United States—India Nuclear Cooperation Approved and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act, was signed by President Bush at a brief White House function in the presence of the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Ronen Sen besides a large gathering of other dignitaries. The final administrative aspect of the deal was completed after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed the bilateral instruments of the 123 Agreement in Washington on October 10 paving the way for operationalization of the deal between the two countries.