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UPA frames nuclear time-table

	September 24, 2007

Starts campaign to reach out to aam aadmi middle class



Despite opposition from the Left, the Manmohan Singh Govern¬ment has worked out a time frame for operationalising the India-US nuclear deal, which coincides with that of the United States. Reports say that the Government has decided to wind up the India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in October, coinciding with the visit of its Director-General Mohammed El Baradei.



The safeguards agreement would then be presented to the next board of governors meeting of the IAEA in November, government sources said.



After it is accepted, the US would need to call an extraor¬dinary plenary session of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, at which India expects to get what Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar called a “clean and unconditional waiver” to resume nuclear commerce.



The US, which briefed the NSG members on the civil nuclear deal with India at a closed door session in Vienna on Sept. 20, wants to seal the agreement by the end of this year.



Once these steps are completed, the 123 agreement would be presented for consideration to the US Congress. At the US Con¬gress, the agreement would need a 90-working day “lie-in” period before it can be voted upon. Only then would the two countries sign the agreement for it to become law.



On the political front, the Congress continues to hard-sell the Indo-US nuclear deal even as the Left leaders blow hot and cold to counter the Manmohan Singh Government on the issue.



On Friday, Sept. 21, the Congress announced its resolve to reach out to the urban middle-class and the common man by pro¬jecting how the Manmohan Singh Government managed to negotiate with Washington a civil nuclear deal that has not only fully protected India’s strategic interests on its nuclear armament programme, but will also ensure steady supply of electricity for factories and aam aadmi’s farms and families.



Without naming the BJP and the Left, the Congress said those who are opposing this nuclear deal were actually helping the concerns of Pakistan and China.



These were the sum total of the message the designated roaming spokesman of the AICC and the Centre on the nuclear deal, Kapil Sibal, took to a specially arranged leadership’s briefing for the Delhi Congress leaders and legislators, presided over by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and PCC chief J.P. Agar¬wal.



On the occasion, Dikshit directed the state party leaders to hit Delhi streets with a focused campaign on the merits of the deal by countering those who spread “rumours and misinformation” and by explaining how the deal will help strengthen India’s energy and electricity needs vis-a-vis China and Pakistan.



Taking on the BJP and the Left, Sibal said both parties are fully aware of the merits of the deal, but are opposing it only for their narrow political interests. Reminding the BJP that it was the Vajpayee regime that initiated the deal talks with Washington and alleging that the BJP-led government was even ready to sign the NPT, Sibal said on the contrary the Congress-led government turned around a deal without compromising the Indian stand against the NPT, by protecting the country’s strate¬gic concerns, including its right to conduct nuclear tests, and by even breaking the nuclear monopoly of a few countries.



Dismissing the Left opposition as its gameplan to project the Congress and its government as pro-American, Sibal said the Left should remember that it was the Congress government in the past that shaped India’s opposition to the NPT, that stopped the Seventh Fleet of the US in the Bay of Bengal, and the one that liberated Bangladesh.



Giving an aam aadmi link to the nuclear deal, he said it will ensure electricity for the farmers and poor villagers in their lands and homes that will provide them a new era of econom¬ic development.





Congress workers given booklet to counter Left’s arguments



The Congress has come out with a booklet countering the Left’s arguments on the nuclear deal point by point. It is being sent to state units of the Congress for circulation to party workers at the district and bloc levels.



Party leaders assert that the Congress has got a mandate from the people for closer ties with the US even though it was not a part of National Common Minimum Programme. The booklet says that the 123 agreement was not at the cost of autonomy of the country’s strategic nuclear programme and its three-stage programme and research and development activities. About the Hyde Act, the booklet says that it is not binding on India. “As far as India is concerned, we are committed to the terms and provisions of the 123 agreement only,” the booklet says.