The Power within

This is not about any spiritual stuff as most of u will misunderstand from the title. I was referring to the power within each atom, each nucleus- the nuclear power. I am not going to bore the readers(if there are any) telling u guys about the technology and science behind nuclear power. Instead lets go directly to the talk of the day : Henry J Hyde India US Peaceful Atomic Energy Co operation act of 2006 (PAEC).
The idea of such a co operation was born during the 2005 visit of Bush to India and to remind you all the corporation between India and US on the nuclear front ended with our 1971 Budha smile's test. After that for 35 odd years India was in a nuclear winter, completely isolated from all other nuclear powers.(We cant say complete isolation because our old allie Russia was always with us both in terms of fuel and technology). India with Russia's backing have build up 22 nuclear reactors till the date which are generating electricity and meeting 3% of our power needs. But as we all are aware , we have been growing quite fast for last few years and with our stock markets, our energy needs also have been growing. So it became indespensible for our PM to ask Bush the ticket to return to the nuclear club. I completely accept his logic in that. We all know that we dont have enough thermal resources (potrol or quality coal) to generate power, neither are our depleating hydal resources sufficient to meet the new requirement. So only remaining feasible resource for quatified production is the atom.

Now lets look into the deal that the US have put forward. The plus in this deal is that it opens the doors of IAEA and the nuclear supplier's group and India will be able to buy Uranium for its reactors. In return India will became a full ally of US and help her in preventing proliferation of "nuclear poison" around the world.(and learn to forget that 99% of all the nuclear weapons are with big guys of IAEA). India will also get nuclear fission technology (supposed to be latest.......who knows ??) .
And the negatives: First is that US is not going to give India any enrichment or re processing technologies so we will have to figure out a way ourselves to complete our nuclear cycle. Second is that our credibility of being a good ally will be assessed every year by the US president and he will have the power to suggest to the NSG to discontinue our status as a peaceful nuclear nation. Thirdly we need to get the go ahead of IAEA and NSG before 123 agreement starting real co operation materialises making it trouble some for us to go back to NSG again for any last minute victory in negotiations we make. Another big problem is that we will have to open up our civilian nuclear facilities for US inspectors if the IAEA finds it powerless to send its own inspectors(Guess this will happen often) and finally we wont be able to exportl any of military technologies(expect some low range primitive weapons) or test any more nuclear devices. (This clause is going to adversly effect our plans to export Brahmos)

Although I may appear to be against this deal, its not the real case. I was just being diplomatic and explaining the cons. I believe we should go ahead with this deal because most of these clauses which appear trecherous for us now can be forgotten easily with the changing circumstances of the business. The biggest reason why I am telling this is because this deal is going to open up the very attractive nuclear sector to US businessmen and once they have investments here, they will take care of the senate and congress and even the Presidents. Another reason is that we are in a fit and there is no other way out to retain our competative edge as a investment destination.
The nuclear power market of the world as we know is in crisis. With the majority public opinion aginst it, most of the biggies have withdrawn from this business. An ideal example is the GE which said good bye in early 90's. They cant be blamed, US, Canada , Europe and ofcourse Japan with their memories from the world war 2 hates any more nuclear reactors in their country. So it is the developing guys like India and China were the market exist if at all. No wonder US is succumbing to Indian pressures or are they really ............