The Indian government exulted over a decision by nuclear supplier nations to end the decades-old ban on trading with the country, and open up a reactor market worth billions of US dollars.
The government called the nuclear trade waiver a “momentous” milestone in its quest to achieve energy security and meet the challenge of global warming.
The statement came after the US finally won approval in Vienna on Saturday for the one-off waiver for India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the export and sale of nuclear technology.
The waiver — a vital step in securing a controversial 2005 India-US civilian technology nuclear accord — marked the end of India’s “decades-long isolation from the nuclear mainstream,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.
“The opening of full civil nuclear cooperation between India and the international community will be good for India and for the world,” he said.
For global nuclear energy companies, the decision opens the door to an atomic reactor market worth billions of US dollars with India aiming to double its share of nuclear power to between 5 to 7 percent by 2030.
The Confederation of Indian Industry forecast business opportunities worth around US$30 billion over the next 15 years with India needing about 18 to 20 more nuclear reactors. It now has 22 reactors.
“The development is a major confidence-building move for the international community to engage with India especially in high technology trade,” the group’s director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said.
A host of nuclear companies from French state-controlled Areva and Russia’s Rosatom Corp to General Electric of the US have already jockeyed for a slice of India’s lucrative atomic market.
India, where many areas endure blackouts lasting 12 hours, has been denied access to civilian nuclear technology since it stunned the world by testing a nuclear weapon in 1974 and refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group was founded to stop other countries emulating India’s example in using imported technology to make an atomic bomb.
Since striking the deal with the US, India has sought to highlight its non-proliferation record.
The oil-import dependent nation is seeking to broaden its fuel sources to sustain its fast-growing economy.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
RSS