The Hindu : National : ``Deal should not be used to browbeat India''

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 18, 2006

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National

``Deal should not be used to browbeat India''

Special Correspondent

Address scientists' concerns: UPA allies

NEW DELHI: The Left parties, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) assailed the Government for going ahead with the nuclear deal with the U.S. and wanted the Prime Minister to assure the House that the deal would not be used to "browbeat India."

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury said his party wanted the Prime Minister to assure the House that India's rights and benefits were safe and that the Government would not do anything that would harm the nation's interests. Mr. Yechury, SPleader Amar Singh, C. Ramachandraiah (TDP), Syed Aziz Pasha (CPI) and Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party) wanted to know why the Government had not taken into account the concerns expressed by some of the country's leading atomic scientists. They wanted the Government to answer all the questions raised by the scientists in a joint letter to the Prime Minister. Mr. Singh later said he supported the deal in "letter and spirit."

Mr. Yechury raised doubts about the need to bank heavily on nuclear energy to meet the country's future needs, especially in view of the huge untapped hydro-electric potential and the reluctance of other countries to set up nuclear power plants. He pointed out that no nuclear plant had come up in the U.S. during the last three decades and India reportedly had untapped hydel potential of 50,000 MW which could be utilised to save "millions of Indians from floods."

He wanted the Government to come out with "some form of an expression," whether a legislation or anything else, to send the message "loud and clear" that India was not following the U.S. line but was pursuing its own independent foreign policy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened to allay his apprehensions of India neglecting China and Russia. He said he had held talks with the Chinese President and the Russian President in this regard. Mr. Yechury also felt India's earlier commitment to global disarmament had been diluted in recent times.

N. Jothi (AIADMK) cautioned the Government of an agitation against the "one-sided" treaty and felt "the minority Congress Government cannot hold the country to ransom."

Mr. Ramachandraiah echoed Yashwant Sinha's concerns about Parliamentarians not being privy to decisions of the Government in this regard. The TDP leader felt the deal would leave India vulnerable to American policies and pointed out that impression to this effect had already gone out to the world at large when India voted against Iran [at the International Atomic Energy Association's board of governors meeting]. P. C. Alexander (Independent) also wanted a "sense of the House" resolution on the issue.

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