D. The US is curbing India's sovereign right to further nuclear testing. The direction in the Hyde Act with regard to the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is unacceptable.
Government: As the separation plan given by the Government of India between military and civil installations has been accepted, what India does in its military installations is nobody else’s business.
E. India's leading role in advocating nuclear disarmament as a major country of the non-aligned community is being given the go-by.
Government: On the contrary, it is being strengthened. It is India and India alone which has refused to sign the discriminatory NPT and is yet being treated as a nuclear state with weapons.
F. The proposed 123 Agreement while superficially using the original wording of the Joint Statement of 2005 -- "full civilian nuclear co-operation" -- denies co-operation or access in any form whatsoever to fuel enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production technologies. This denial (made explicit in Art 5.2 of the proposed agreement) also extends to transfers of dual-use items that could be used in enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water production facilities.
Government: This nuclear apartheid is precisely what India is trying to overcome through a civilian nuclear agreement.
Image: A file photograph of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the site of the nuclear test in Pokhran on May 20, 1998.
Photograph: Rediff Archives
Also read: 'PM's reputation is in some jeopardy'
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