Having obtained a waiver at the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and with South Africa and Brazil already welcoming India's acceptance of the relevant guidelines regulating the issue, India is exploring the possibility of accessing uranium from South Africa.
China's assistance to build new nuclear plants in Pakistan are "inconsistent" with its commitments to Nuclear Suppliers Group, a top United States official has said.
India was on Wednesday unperturbed by Nuclear Suppliers Group's decision to strengthen guidelines on enrichment and reprocessing technology transfer, saying it expected its bilateral agreements on full implementation of nuclear deals to be fully honoured without any pre-conditions.
Russia on Friday assured that India would continue to enjoy the waiver it received in 2008 from the Nuclear Suppliers Group's export ban and Moscow wants New Delhi's full participation in the 45-nation grouping that regulates global atomic commerce. Russia's assurance came after India objected to the new guidelines adopted in June by the NSG on the export of nuclear enrichment and reprocessing equipment.
Gokhale has said that China used its "close connections" with the Left parties in India to "build domestic opposition" to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
India on Monday signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with South Korea, allowing a framework for Korean companies to participate in atomic power plant projects in the country.
The US position is that cooperation on the construction of two new reactors, Chasma III and IV, would be inconsistent with the commitments China made at the time of its adherence to Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines in 2004.
Unruffled by global concerns, Beijing and Islamabad are in talks to build a new nuclear reactor in Pakistan of 1 gigawatt capacity, three times more powerful than existing ones, apparently without the approval of the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
The groups, who direct such attacks against India, have received the patronage of powerful forces and institutions within that country. It is vital that this support must stop forthwith. Any viable process of normalization of our relations with Pakistan is essentially dependent on this requirement since it is unrealistic to think otherwise.
The United States on Thursday said it "strongly and vehemently" supports the Nuclear Suppliers Group clean waiver for India and hoped that the civil nuclear deal between the two countries will continue to move in a positive direction.
China is all set to announce its intent to provide to Pakistan two nuclear-power reactors, according to a prominent American nuclear expert who said this would breach international protocol about the trade of nuclear equipment and material.
Reflecting their desire to deepen the strategic partnership, India and Germany have for the first time discussed the possibilities of entering into bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear energy.
Germany on Monday backed India's bid to gain membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, applauding the country's 'excellent' non-proliferation track record.German Ambassador Thomas Mattusek told reporters that India not being a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will not be an issue for his country's support to India's candidacy to the elite nuclear club, though it would like New Delhi to be a signatory to the NPT.
In a significant announcement during United States President Barack Obama's visit, the US on Saturday said it will support India's full membership in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group and three other multilateral export control regimes.
India and South Korea have reached an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation, marking the ninth such pact that New Delhi has finalised since getting the Nuclear Suppliers' Group waiver in 2008.
"This is something we will keep working on together. We strongly support India's accession in the NSG," he said.
As India scalps its third nuclear deal this month, the vindication and the victory cannot hide the fact that the all-powerful Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which met in Christchurch, New Zealand last week, failed to dissuade China from supplying two nuclear power reactors to Pakistan in pursuance of two that had earlier been supplied.
The nonproliferation lobby in the United States, which is vehemently opposed to the India-US nuclear deal, has objected strongly to the new draft proposal submitted by the Bush administration to the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna, before it convenes on August 21 to consider the India-specific exemption from NSG rules. The group has termed the proposal 'an abomination that should be flatly rejected by the NSG'.
The United States has asked China to clarify details of its agreement with Pakistan to supply two nuclear power plants to the latter.
Experts have said that the deal appears to be violating international guidelines forbidding nuclear exports to countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or do not have international safeguards on reactors.
The UPA government on Friday insisted that the country's "sovereign" interests, including in strategic nuclear field, were protected in the IAEA safeguards agreement and expressed confidence about getting an exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Making nuclear exemptions for India, says Senator Edward Markey, 'only infuriates Pakistan and leads them to further increase their own nuclear capacities.'
With China pressing ahead on its controversial decision to supply two additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan, the US on Friday indicated that the deal may not get the approval of the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) given Islamabad's track record.
Notwithstanding the resolution of G-8 countries on curbing transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology, India on Thursday asserted that it was proceeding with bilateral civil nuclear deals with various countries on the basis of 'clean waiver' granted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Canada will become the latest country with which India shall have civil nuclear deal since the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowed New Delhi to resume global nuclear trade in September 2008.
It's highly unlikely that China will give up playing the Pakistan card vis-a-vis India anytime soon. Indian policy makers would be well advised to disabuse themselves of the notion of a Sino-Indian rapprochement. China doesn't do sentimentality in foreign policy, India should follow suit, writes Harsh V Pant.
Non-proliferation specialists and non-government organisations have asked the foreign ministers of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to reject the US proposal to exempt India from long-standing global nuclear trade standards.
Ahead of the meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group on the India-United States nuclear agreement, US Under Secretary of State William Burns is expected to undertake a visit here as part of efforts to coordinate strategy with India for the August 21 session.During the possible visit, he will hold talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, mainly discussing the remaining steps in implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Armed with a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers' Group India is now scouting for uranium from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Niger to fuel its atomic power plants which are running at half their installed capacity.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs favoured expeditious resumption of fuel supplies to the country's civil nuclear plants.
The country is planning to increase its nuclear power generation by about 60,000 mega watts (Mw) within the next 25 years. This planned capacity addition is being executed by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). Its head, Chairman and Managing Director SK Jain, tells P B Jayakumar about his plans and expectations.
In a missive to Dr Singh dated September 23 on the day of the prime minister's arrival in New York, and made available to rediff.com, Obama said at the outset, "I am very pleased that your visit provides us with the opportunity to strengthen the US-India relationship."
Forty domestic companies, including the Videocon group, Jindal Power and Tata Power, have formed a group to convince the central government to allow private participation in generation of civilian nuclear energy.
India Inc expects huge business opportunities to open up with the Nuclear Supplier's Group sanctioning an India specific waiver on Saturday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday held discussions with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and National Security Adviser M K Narayanan on the deliberations in the Nuclear Suppliers Group where a consensus on a waiver for India is still elusive.
While denying, along with the non-proliferation lobby in the United States, that it conspired to deliberately release this correspondence on the eve of the NSG meeting to scuttle the US-India deal as administration and diplomatic sources had contended, Berman's office and Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, which has been in the forefront of opposing the agreement, said the fault lay with the Bush administration and the Manmohan Singh government
The proposal for undertaking joint technical development work for extending range beyond 300-km has been executed between India and Russia, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
On the eve of the Nuclear Suppliers Group's extraordinary plenary meeting to decide on nuclear commerce with India, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will brief the current chair Germany and two other key members of the 45-nation NSG.
During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's wide-ranging talks with his Italian counterpart Romano Prodi in Delhi, the two sides expressed their commitment to work towards establishing a strategic partnership.
Although New Delhi may have expressed satisfaction with its inoffensively packaged wording, the draft proposal carries serious implications for India. The draft is likely to attract even more India-specific conditions when it is taken up for consideration by the NSG, given the cartel's consensual decision-making process
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