Gujarat, Andhra chosen as sites for United States nuclear reactors

Days before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives In India on her first official visit after taking charge, India is learnt to have firmed up a site each in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh that will be dedicated for the first US nuclear reactors after the nuclear deal.

While this has already been indicated to Washington, sources said, a formal announcement could happen during Clinton’s visit.

The identification of the sites flows from a commitment India had given, through a letter of intent under the nuclear deal, which commits India to purchase 10,000 MW from US nuclear companies and mark “at least two sites” for this purpose.

Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were the two states that offered sites for this and have now been approved.

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Bush signs deal into law, guarantees India fuel supply, reprocessing rights

More than three years after the blueprint was outlined in a Indo-US joint statement in Washington, the nuclear deal got its final legal sanctity today when US President George W Bush signed the 123 agreement into law and made it clear that US will fulfill all its fuel assurance commitments in the agreement. He also specified that the agreement recognises India’s right to reprocess spent fuel.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will formally ink the deal tomorrow.

In an effort to address any doubts in India over the contents of the legislation he was signing and concerns that it had deviated from what the two countries had negotiated, Bush recorded in his signing statement, which is a reflection of how the US President interprets a particular law for further implementation and has its own sanctity, that Washington will meet all its obligations in the 123 agreement.

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United States House clears nuclear deal, Prime Minister says happy but wait for final outcome

India and US are now just one step away from closing a 38-month Herculean effort to have a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries after the House of Representatives cleared the agreement with a two-thirds majority late Saturday night. The pact now rolls over to the Senate where a senator backed by five others has moved an “on hold” anonymous motion that has got the Senate leadership back on its toes to have it passed early next week.

Singh, meanwhile, is all set to preside over the signing of a similar agreement with France as Department of Atomic Energy head Anil Kakodkar joined his delegation in France. The two countries will also sign a path-breaking space launch agreement, where medium-weight French satellites will be launched by the PSLV.

The news of the House approval — 298 votes in favour, 117 opposed — broke minutes before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to address the Indian community, setting the stage for his speech in which he thanked the US Administration for their efforts. Later, on his way to Marseille for the Indo-EU summit, Singh gave his first reactions. “I have just heard that the House has passed the Bill which will now go to the US Senate.

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Sleepless in Vienna: China threatens to leave for home, US works into the night

With Austria and Ireland still holding out and the Chinese delegation threatening to leave for Beijing, tough negotiations were on late into the night at the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna to forge a consensus to end India’s three and a half decades of nuclear isolation.

A new NSG draft was in the works and had been sent to Washington for clearance although India made it clear that there was almost no scope to revise the draft in substantive terms.

The Chinese, sources said, objected to what they called was the manner in which matters were being pushed on an issue they said involved the future of the global non-proliferation regime.

Well aware of the stakes in the Indo-US nuclear deal — and the tight Congressional calendar ahead — the “highest levels” in Washington got in touch with their counterparts in Beijing to get China to stay on by including it in the consultative process.

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Is it end-deal?

What the Congress kept delaying finally happened today: its moment of reckoning has come, after the Left made it clear it would not let the Government go to Vienna to confirm the safeguards agreement, the key first piece in the operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The party’s top brass went into a huddle at 10, Janpath faced with perhaps the toughest choice since they took charge four years ago: give in to the Left and freeze the Indo-US nuclear deal to keep the government alive and a line with the Left open in an election year or seize the historic opportunity and stamp the party’s commitment to the “national interest.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who spoke to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the phone, was learnt to have argued in favour of going ahead with the deal after the Left issued a statement that it was of the “firm opinion” that “the government should not proceed to seek approval of the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Directors of the IAEA.”

This Left statement came a few hours after the government deferred today’s UPA-Left meeting to June 25 as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s discussions with CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday and Tuesday failed to make any headway. The Left also said it did not get the full text of the agreement.

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On bumpy nuclear-deal road, UPA switches on Left indicator

A Head of a Left-UPA meeting on the nuclear deal that coincides with sessions of the IAEA Board of Govenors and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Government is clearly trying to signal to its Left allies that it has not, as they have accused, bartered away its "independent foreign policy."

That signal is not so subtly couched in a series of carefully chosen steps which today included an unusually strong rebuff to Washington for commenting on the April 29 visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And the cancellation of a joint media interaction on Konkan 2008, the Indo-UK joint naval exercise that gets underway the same day Ahmadinejad is in India. Significantly, USS Cole is in Indian waters as an observer.

"India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries.Both nations are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship with the appropriate degree of care and attention...Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe that engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace," said the MEA spokesperson in response to queries on remarks made in Washington last evening.

During the daily press interaction, US Department of State spokesperson, asked about Ahmadinejad's visit to India, said: "We would hope that the Indian Government or any government that was engaging with the Iranians, including with President Ahmadinejad, would call on him to meet the requirements that the Security Council and the international community has placed on him in terms of suspending their uranium enrichment activities and complying with the other requirements regarding their nuclear programme.

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Low on fuel and no sign of deal, nuclear power plants take a hit

With the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement still far from being done, a shortage in fuel supplies has resulted in a majority of nuclear power plants in India showing a decline in their operating capacities compared to last year. This has led to a 10 per cent reduction in overall power generation.

According to information available on the website of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), the capacity factor of ten of the 17 units has gone down in 2007-08 (till February) compared to the previous year.

In some cases, like Unit-I in Kalpakkam, the fall in the operating capacity has been drastic, coming down to 36 per cent from 72 per cent last year. Unit-1 in Kakrapar has simi larly been operating at only 46 per cent of its capacity as compared to 67 per cent last year.

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