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Top N-scientists want Parliament to act

Top N-scientists want Parliament to act

Author: N Madhavan Kutty
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: August 15, 2006
URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20060814131448

Eight senior nuclear scientists in the country led by Dr H N Sethna, Dr M R Srinivasan and Dr P K Iyengar, all former chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission, have in a joint statement warned that US law-makers in the Congress have modified in letter and spirit the implementation of the July 18 nuclear cooperation agreement signed by the Prime Minister and President Bush and appealed to the members of Parliament to step in to see that the deal does not inhibit the country's future ability to develop and pursue nuclear technology for the nation's benefit.

The statement wanted the Parliament to discuss the nuke deal and arrive at a unanimous decision on it, recognising the fundamental facts of India's indigenous nuclear science and technology development to date, the efforts made to overcome the unfair restrictions placed on us and the imaginative policies and planning enunciated and followed in the years after independence.

The other five signatories to the statement released here on the eve of Independence day are Dr A Goplakrishnan, former Chairman Atomic Regulatory Board, Dr S L Kati, former Director, Nuclear Power Corporation, Dr A N Prasad, former Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Dr Y S R Prasad, former Chairman and Managing Director, Nuclear Power Corporation, and Dr Placid Rodriguez, former Director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research.

The eight top nuclear scientists who had held decision-making positions at the Secretary level in the country's nuclear establishment under late Dr Homi Bhabha and shared the Nehruvian vision of developing indigenous nuclear science and technology for nation-building have for the first time collectively and openly challenged the Government's persistent claim that American law-makers have not moved the goal posts in the implementation of the July 18 agreement, thus adding their voice to the growing number of critics of the fine print of the US Congressional legislation that is on the anvil.

Their intervention is also timed to lend strength to the demand by the opposition for passing a resolution by the Parliament that would express a 'sense of the House'.

The Government has proposed a parliamentary discussion on the deal to be replied to by the Prime Minister.

The nuclear scientists, while not faulting the Government per se for striking the cooperation deal with the US, minced no words on the trap that lay ahead for the country's nuclear programme if the US law makers were allowed to craft its implementation the way they want.

They have warned that the country cannot accede to any restrictions in perpetuity on our freedom to exercises the nuclear strategic option.

They have demanded that external control through safeguards be strictly restricted to those facilities that had materials imported from external sources and that our independent Research and Development in nuclear science and technology is not hampered by external supervision or control or by the need to satisfy any international body.

While granting that international cooperation in nuclear energy is useful and inevitable, the scientists pointed out that it was for the nation and its parliament to work out and insist on the ground rules for the sequences of action to implement such cooperation.

They noted that the Prime Minister has promised to take up with the US certain clauses in the legislation but they warned that if the US Congress in its wisdom passes the Bill in its present form, the "product " will be unacceptable to India and diplomatically it will be difficult to change it later.


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