India, Canada sign nuclear accord

[b555]

India and Canada on Monday signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described it as “breaking new ground in the history of our cooperation in this sector.†Driving home the point about India's new status, he said, “It reflects the change in international realities.†India and Canada have had a long but rocky relationship on nuclear cooperation after the nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also welcomed the agreement. Both countries resolved to ratify the accord and complete all remaining steps soon. This is the next step before Canada starts selling nuclear reactors to India. Canada said the “agreement will provide access for Canada's nuclear industry to India's expanding nuclear market.†Dr. Singh said both nations also agreed to try and take the bilateral trade up to $15 billion in the next five years, up from the current level of around $5 billion. A comprehensive economic cooperation agreement is also being envisaged and the initial work on it was on. The Prime Ministers said they wanted early signing of the foreign investment promotion and protection agreement to facilitate its ratification and implementation. The other areas in which they agreed to increase cooperation are earth sciences and mining, transportation, natural resources, infrastructure, agriculture and agri-food cooperation and higher education. Referring to the Kanishka crash, Dr. Singh reminded Canada that the victims of the crash “deserve full justice.†G-20 declaration Earlier, the G-20 in a declaration, said the advanced economies were committed to fiscal plans that would at least halve the deficits by 2013 and stabilise or reduce government debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016. To deal with the differences that have arisen over the trajectory of fiscal adjustment, it said, “There is a risk that synchronised fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery. There is also a risk that the failure to implement consolidation where necessary would undermine confidence and hamper growth.†Surplus economies have to undertake reforms to reduce their reliance on external demand and focus more on domestic sources of growth, it noted. The G-20 members also agreed to strengthen the financial market infrastructure by accelerating the implementation of strong measures to improve transparency and regulatory oversight of hedge funds, credit rating agencies and over-the-counter derivatives in an internationally consistent and non-discriminatory way. No reference was made to the idea of a transactions tax on banks. Instead, the declaration committed the members to design and implement a system with powers and tools to restructure or resolve all types of financial institutions in crisis, without the taxpayers ultimately bearing the burden. However, how this is to be done was not spelt out. The declaration also made an explicit reference to corruption. “Corruption threatens the integrity of markets, undermines fair competition, distorts resource allocation, destroys public trust and undermines the rule of law. We call for the ratification and full implementation by all G-20 members of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and encourage others to do the same,†it said. The next meeting of the G-20 is in Seoul on November 11-12. http://goo.gl/1mJS

[Clarke]

USA, Russia, France & now Canada. Decades of diplomacy and non-alignment finally bearing some fruit. Kudos to MMS too, realizes the needs of the country and does not back off to impractical liberal ideas.

[bharathh]

I really hope that we do not pin down all our energy hopes to be met by nuclear energy alone. All someone would need to do to bring us down to our knees is to cut off the source of enriched uranium. Also given the corruption and chalta hai attitude of our govt, a nuclear accident would not be unexpected in India. I really hope India takes to renewable energy. China has taken the lead in that field in a big way. That is the future of energy. Nuclear energy is a good stopgap until newer sources of energy are obtained.

[Clarke]

I really hope that we do not pin down all our energy hopes to be met by nuclear energy alone. All someone would need to do to bring us down to our knees is to cut off the source of enriched uranium. Also given the corruption and chalta hai attitude of our govt, a nuclear accident would not be unexpected in India.

I wouldnt really worry about the first part, considering the diversity of suppliers with USA/Canada on the west, Russia on the east and France generally neutral, i think we're fine. It would be gr8 if all the technology we obtain access to helps us in our quest for Thorium as a primary fuel for the coming decades, have no knowledge on that though. The second concern is valid and outright scary.

I really hope India takes to renewable energy. China has taken the lead in that field in a big way. That is the future of energy. Nuclear energy is a good stopgap until newer sources of energy are obtained.

I think we're trying what we can. We're fifth largest in wind and have major plans for solar as well as jatropha. We're a democracy with inefficiency and corruption and have much larger problems such as poverty to deal with first. All of us know, China is much better off since it has the $$$$ to throw into whats important for the long term while we need soft loans 4m WB and Japan for basic infrastructure projects like metro rail.

[bharathh]

Self-sufficiency in power is going to be big determinant as to whether India is able to sustain its growth or not. We need to wean ourselves away from Oil and coal in a big way. With the kind of population we have, pollution will be reduced dramatically if we can use renewable energy. Infrastructure is the #1 requirement for development. Cheap power, transportation and communications are essential components of growth. Transportation and communications are heavily reliant on cheap power nowadays. We need to find new energy sources fast! The price of oil will be a huge drain on our stretched national budget. If we can get cheap power to our rural areas, those areas may be able to sustain industry as well. This will help reverse ... or at least slow down migration to the urban areas. Our cities are already dangerously overpopulated!