Even before it faces the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha, the government will brief the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors in Vienna on July 18 on the India-specific safeguards agreement, which the board is likely to discuss on August 1 to help the implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal. India on Monday informed the 35 member-countries on the board of governors about the July 18 briefing, IAEA sources said.
A crucial meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to build a consensus on India-specific safeguards accord essential to help implement Indo-US nuclear deal has been postponed from July 28 and is likely to be held on August 1, IAEA sources said.
The mistake the enemies of the deal in India and the US are making is to seek satisfaction over their own wish list.
The challenge before the Congress is to get its arithmetic right and mount an operation that is foolproof, particularly after the way things were botched up in Srinagar
Unfazed over the Left's decision to withdraw support to UPA government, the Congress on Tuesday said there was no threat to the Manmohan Singh-led ministry and that it would prove its majority in Parliament.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived in Japan on Monday to attend the G-8 summit, met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to discuss various issues listed on the summit's agenda, including the climate change which tops it.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will leave for Tokyo for the G8 Summit at 8 am on Monday. Dr Singh will met US President George Bush on July 9.
If the government has the courage to defy its leftist allies, there is no better time to tackle these issues than now.
The ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict has disrupted India's efforts to gain from a recent fall in crude oil prices. Since Hamas' invasion of southern Israel on October 7, petroleum has become costlier by around $5 per barrel, threatening to stoke prices and impact growth. Brent crude was trading at $89.8 per barrel on October 9 (9.15 pm IST), up over 4 per cent, thwarting India's anticipation of a period of declining oil prices - after the leading global petroleum benchmark declined by around 11 per cent last week.
"Work on the PFBR is on schedule and we expect it to be completed by 2010," Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar told reporters in Delhi on Thursday evening.
India has promised to reduce the emission intensity of its growth by 33-35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Rejecting some critics' argument as to what message the US was sending to Iran by signing a nuclear energy deal with India, Burns said, "We don't see the connection between what Iran is doing and what India seeks to do."
Major powers including Britain and France said the agreement would benefit the non-proliferation regime.
Ahead of their crucial meeting with the United Progressive Alliance on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left parties will meet on Monday to chalk out their line of action on the issue. The government is likely to brief the Left parties on the over three-month long negotiations it held with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the safeguards agreement during the UPA-Left committee meet.
In response to a question whether the left party held out a threat to withdraw support from the government on the Iran issue.
"India, with long-standing experience in operating nuclear plants and building human and knowledge resources, can be a guiding force for new entrants seeking to harness atomic technology for producing power."
Senators Joseph Biden, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Wedensday, said if the deal is not taken up in the US Congress by June and the process completed during the tenure of President George W Bush, any new US administration will renegotiate the deal.
The two sides have held four rounds of talks in Vienna to finalise the draft pact, which the Congress-led government has to place before the United Progressive Alliance-Left panel to get a political go ahead for the deal, that aims to get India out of nuclear wilderness. "We have held four rounds of talks but do not have a draft yet," a source said.
The four-day talks that concluded on Saturday were originally considered to be a final round but the draft text could not be completed, IAEA sources said, adding that there was also no meeting point on the issue of corrective measures to be undertaken in the event of stoppage of fuel to power plants.
Natwar Singh had remarked that India shouldn't vote in case of a stronger stand.
Left wants India to abstain during IAEA vote on Iran
The Left parties have slammed the government for the vote.
Iran has resumed uranium enrichment, which was suspended under a deal with the European Union and critical questions remain about its atomic programme, the United Nations nuclear watchdog has said.
What does the prime minister's position on the nuclear deal mean? What does the Congress want from the issue? What does the Left stand to gain? Sheela Bhatt explains.
"'If the Congress agrees to freeze the deal, then, no country in the world will deal with India in future. Every time you go for negotiations, other countries will ask 'Have the Left parties given you permission to have the deal?'"
ElBaradei will have talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders in Delhi even as the government's standoff with the Left on the nuclear deal escalated further.
The Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to file by Friday its affidavit in response to a petition of Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot, seeking to quash an FIR registered in a bank loan fraud case, to declare his arrest as "arbitrary and illegal" and to be released on bail. When the plea came up for hearing, advocate Kuldeep Patil asked for one-week time to seek instructions on the same. A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and P K Chavan said the agency shall file its affidavit by Friday and posted the petition for hearing the same day (January 13).
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have discovered that Iran had produced and experimented with Polonium.
"A Biden administration will be mostly positive for India," said Rick Rossow from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank. "I expect most positive areas of cooperation -- notably defence -- to be maintained," he said.
"Our position is unchanged. You can draw your own conclusions from that," said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi.
Says it will make the world a better place
They said that India and the US should put on a fast track the negotiations with the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency and pave the way for signing the pact.
The Left parties, which met in New Delhi on Friday, said they "would not do anything" till Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh came back from the G-8 summit in Japan next week.
Use of force against Tehran can exacerbate tensions: India
'The US motivations are far from clear, but there is a balance of rights and obligations in the Indo-US deal.'
