Bill on N-deal introduced in US House of Representatives

The Senate version of the bill of approval of the Indo-United States nuclear agreement was introduced on Wednesday in the House of Representatives, giving boost to efforts to push the agreement hours before a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush in Washington.

The bill was introduced by the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

A top Congressional aide to the Florida Republican said that the introduction of the legislation in the House did not mean that the matter will be taken up immediately but suggested that perhaps the matter may come up for discussion today.

Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement

The introduction of the Senate version of the India-US Bill in the House comes on the eve of the visit of Dr Singh to Washington for a crucial meeting with President Bush at the White House.

The introduction in the House of the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement came after the House Rules Committee in an emergency session voted that certain specified measures may be considered under the suspension of the rules on the legislative day of September 25.

The Rules Committee approved the suspension of rules on 44 measures, including the ninth on the list -- "A Bill relating to India nuclear cooperation".

There is still no word on how leaders of Congress are going to manoeuvre the United States India agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with all kinds of speculation still going around including as a part of a bigger package involving a Continuing Resolution.