|
The US Congress is actively debating the deal and
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran returned from
the
US
after lobbying many key
US
policy makers. An unnamed official cited
in The Washington Post was quoted saying that
“
India
was greedy” in its initial negotiations with
the
US
balking at suggestions of inspections. The
same source said that
India
wanted to be recognized as a nuclear weapons
state.
A recent KPMG study said that
India
cannot rely on
coal in the long term
as its
supply is dwindling, getting more expensive to
retrieve, and its existing mines
inefficient.
India
is trying to
deregulate the coal
exploration and mining through
100%
private participation and by foreign direct
investment . It is setting up 5 major coal
fired power plants to augment this energy
deficit. According to Government estimates,
India
needs USD 30 billion investments in coal
mining alone to meet the energy demands.
Therefore, the deal is crucial for
India
’s economic sustainability.
Banking on the deal going through, Indian industrial
major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has
expressed public interest in building, owning,
and operating nuclear power plants. L&T
entered the energy sector with a policy to
open a new hydro-electricity plant every 2
years.
India
is severely energy deficient and a KPMG study
said that
India
would need an investment of USD 9-10 billion
in 5-6 years to meet the increasing energy
demand that is expected to growth four times
in the next 25 years. This would mean that
India
would have to build 250,000
megawatts-electrical output of nuclear
capacity to meet this demand growth.
Meanwhile,
China
and
Australia
signed a deal for the latter to supply nuclear
fuel to the former. Australian Prime Minister
John Howard also debunked notions that a
China
containment strategy was evolving and that it
is part
of this alliance.
Australia
has consistently taken sides with
China
even when such partiality is not unnecessary
almost as if it wants to appear close to
China
. Indian policy makers do not recognize this
pattern of behavior and continue to buy large
amount of agricultural products from that
country. |
