In the light of questions being raised in the United States Congress about the July 18 agreement that would enable India to obtain American nuclear technology and fuel for civilian reactors while it remains outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, India is now reconciled to the reality that the deal will not be ready for implementation by the time president George W. Bush is here on an official visit in February 2006.
Nuclear deal may be dead on arrival
US laws need to be amended in an "India-specific" manner before high-tech exports, including in the nuclear field, to this country can be cleared. Indian negotiators had insisted that no other country should be extended similar facilities.
Both sides had hoped, in the first flush of signing the unusual agreement, that US legislative changes would be through and the pact all set to be rendered effective when the president arrives.
This was to have marked the high point of the Bush visit.
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Since the nuclear component of the July agreement is still some way from becoming operational, knowledgeable sources here say Indian and US officials will now have to settle for something nearly "as eye-catching" that may help imbue the Bush trip with special significance.
An area being looked at in this context is high-end space technologies that America has denied India for decades along with nuclear wherewithal. In the event, relevant US licensing procedures will need to be re-fashioned before February.
The American restriction on space owed to the fact that space science is needed to send up missiles that may carry a nuclear load, and also to fabricate defences against incoming missiles. An opening up in this field is considered adequate to serve the end of high-value symbolism for the president's visit.
That obscure object of desire: Nuclear energy
Notwithstanding criticism of the July 18 agreement in the country and from anti-proliferation hawks in America, the view in the Indian establishment is that it must be persevered with.
In terms of impact on the world stage, senior functionaries place it on par with Henry Kissinger's secret trip to China in the early '70s that had radically changed Cold War equations and brought about strategic synergy between capitalist Washington and communist Beijing.
The Indians appear unfazed by US demand to present a credible separation plan between civil and military nuclear reactors that can pass Congress on being backed by the US administration.
Of the 13 reactors in the country, the official view is that there isn't enough indigenously-produced nuclear fuel to go around for most. This is a key reason the contribution of nuclear power to the national power generation effort is a mere three per cent at present, when it can go up to several times that.
For the US, it's advantage India
The picture can change, it is felt, only when most of the reactors can be classified as civilian. That will place them under international safeguards but also ensure the import of critically needed fuel from the Nuclear Suppliers Group once the July agreement with the US becomes operational.
The US is being relied upon to push India's case with the NSG countries for the commercial supply of nuclear material. Well-placed sources here claim full American assurances in this regard.
The Manmohan Singh government looks forward to the day when nuclear power generation in the country becomes a full-fledged commercial activity in which private companies, domestic and foreign, can take part -- from the fabrication to the generation stage.
The P-5 countries -- permanent members of the UN Security Council -- of course enjoy the freedom to re-classify a civilian nuclear reactor to the military category, claiming national security requirements. Will India be permitted such privilege under the July 18 agreement? The question, sources believe, will be a matter of determined negotiation.
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