The emerging partnership between the United States and India took two steps forward in the last ten days. I am talking about progress on the US India Civil Nuclear Agreement of course. On July 22, the India’s coalition government survived a trust vote in Parliament; this vote was precipitated by the withdrawal of a coalition supporter over the government’s support of the nuclear accord. Then on August 1st the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously approved an updated “safeguards” agreement that allows this UN agency to monitor eight additional nuclear reactors in India.
There are still two more significant hurdles before American, French, Russian, Japanese and other companies can begin to bid for nuclear power projects in India. The first requires approval from the 45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. The second requires another resolution in the US Congress. The Bush administration is keen to get this process to the final stage. Neither Obama nor McCain have stated a strong position for or against the agreement: but supporters fear that it may languish at low priority under either administration.
Corporate America, including companies that have nothing to do with nuclear energy, are vigorous supporters of this process because they believe that a nuclear bond would accelerate two way trade in many other areas, such as defense, technology, food, chemicals, services, and more. The US-India Business Council is a vociferous supporter of this agreement
