Nuke Deal

In India, many r quite confused with the never ending debate ongoing between the ruling and opposition political parties over "123 Nuclear agreement". What exactly is the confusion?? as a true citizen of India, I always want her to see in the league of developed nations, and for that matter, we need to fulfill her basic needs to fuel growth momentum, like infrastructure, and offcourse, electricity is one among them.

India generates almost 70-75 % of its electricity using thermal power, naturally thats due the high coal deposits found under its soil, and more than 25% of electricity from hydro power, and the rest 1 or 2 % is generated using nuclear power and wind power. As we rely so much on coal, what if a day comes when we realise that the new coal deposits are scarcely found, and the existing coal will get exhausted in few years??, now tats a grave question for an economically surging country like India, on the other side there is global warming, as most of the countries are trying to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which restricts their emission levels below certain barrier. Hence, India, which is one of the fastest developing nations of the world, has a huge task to check on its emission levels without hurting its development spree, which is quite difficult if we continue to rely more on coal energy as we do now. The Govt of India might be harping on this from quite a few years. To protect the interests of its entrapanuers, citizens and more importantly the farmers, our Govt is haplessely running behind every opportunity which will subside the major part of its energy hunger.

U.S. nuclear deal or 123 agreement is seen as relief to all these huffings going on where, India will be helped by U.S. in setting up civilian nulcear plants to generate electriciy along with the required uranium fuel supply from the countries who posses it. For the deal to start functioning India must pass the bill in its parliment after the IAEA(International Automatic Enery Agency)'s go ahead which will inspect all the nuclear plants for safeguards and checks for any non civilian use of nuclear enery like nuclear arms etc. To get the bill passed in the parliment the ruling govt is busy convincing all the opposition parties and also the citizens of India claiming it as the cleanest possible energy, and if given a go ahead now will be a boon to the economy, where as the opposition parites are dragging it down with the apprehensions of US imperialisom, its hostile nature, raising fears if U.S. breaks the deal, as India would have invested billions of dollars for setting up the nuclear plants.

The repurcussions of breaking the deal is, the proposed uranium supply to India will be stopped and more threatening is that India will be asked back all the technology and material provided from the day the deal is kicked off. There is a group of 45 countries called NSG(Nuclear Suppliers Group), The deal says all the NSG countries will help in running the nuke plants by supplying the required fuel and material. However these countries have the veto power in this deal, so if any country backs off that means the deal will be stalled, and as India does not share the soft corner with some of these countries, especially China, so it becomes quite daunting to aboard this deal without any brainstorming from experts.

Nuclear energy is ofcourse one of the cleanest possible energies and would curb India's energy hunger marginally, even Mr.Abdul Kalam, the former President of India and also a renowned scientist appreciates the initiatives taken in this regard, however its very imperative that the Indian govt should setup a detailed discourse about how well we can avoid any worst case situations if at all they occur in the future and must consult the scientists, economists and every other concerned fraternity who can help in taking the most appropriate decision on this nuclear deal.