03 - The Steps Ahead in The Indo-U.S Deal

Now that the historic Indo - U.S deal has been inked, India has to work to ensure that this deal gets the approval of the U.S congress. India has already started work in this regard. India has stated that it will shut down the contentious CIRUS reactor in Trombay in a phased manner over the next five years. The cirus reactor is one of the oldest reactors in the country. It is a 40MW research reactor obtained from Canada in 1954; it went operational in 1960 with U.S supplying heavy water. The CIRUS (acronym for Canada – India – U.S – research reactor) has been in controversy after the 1974 Pokhran-I test during Indira Gandhi’s regime. It is alleged by the international community that India diverted weapons grade plutonium to fuel Pokhran-I from cirus. Shutting down this reactor will help pacifying those against the deal. The Indian scientific community also believes that cirus has lived its life; in fact it was shut down in 1997 until DAE carried out a refurbishment to get it operational last year.
There are many road blocks in the path of this deal. One is the fact that, U.S has had no new reactors in the last decade or so. This means that the large U.S companies, General Electric and Westinghouse, the leading nuclear tech suppliers in u.s will not have the state-of-the-art technology o meet India’s huge demand and that other nuclear powers like France and Russia would gain benefit. Another issue that the U.S congress would be following is going to be large weapons and equipment purchase by India. U.S is already trying to hard sell the F-16 and F-18 fighters to India. The acquisition of amphibious transport ship USS Trenton by India has already been cleared by U.S, but the deal has not been finalised. This game has only begun and Delhi has a long way to go….