Seize the moment, Rice to Congress on India deal

     Washington: The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has urged the US Congress to seize the opportunity and clear the nuclear deal with India as "looking back decades from now, we will recognize this moment as the time when America invested the strategic capital needed to recast its relationship with India". In an exclusive article in the Washington Post today, she said the Indo-US nuclear agreement was unique in many aspects. India was not only a democracy where citizens of many ethnic groups and faiths co-operated in peace and freedom, but the country's civilian government was functioning transparently and accountably and had a clear record on non-proliferation issues, she said. "It is fighting terrorism and extremism, and it has a 30-year record of responsible behaviour on non-proliferation matters," she said in her article. Condoleezza Rice said India was a rising democratic power in a dynamic Asia and the Indo-US deal was a strategic achievement, which would strengthen international security and enhance energy security and environmental protection.

     "It will foster economic and technological development, and it will help transform the partnership between the world's oldest and the world's largest democracy," she said. She said that the deal would be good for energy security as well. India was a huge nation and had tremendous energy needs for its growing development. As such the "civilian nuclear energy would make it less reliant on unstable sources of oil and gas". "Our agreement will allow India to contribute to and share in the advanced technology that is needed for the future development of nuclear energy. And because nuclear energy is cleaner than fossil fuels, our agreement will also benefit the environment. A threefold increase in Indian nuclear capacity by 2015 would reduce India's projected annual CO2 emissions by more than 170 million tons, about the current total emissions of the Netherlands," she said.

    This apart, the agreement would also open the door to more jobs for the US. The deal would usher in civilian nuclear trade between India and the US. She said India planned to import eight nuclear reactors by 2012. Even if US companies won just two contracts, that would mean creation of thousands of new jobs for the American workers. "We plan to expand our civilian nuclear partnership to research and development, drawing on India's technological expertise to promote a global renaissance in safe and clean nuclear power," she added. Lastly, the deal was a stepping stone towards transforming Washington's partnership with New Delhi. Rice said: "For too long during the past century, differences over domestic policies and international purposes kept India and the United States estranged. But with the end of the Cold War, the rise of the global economy and changing demographics in both of our countries, new opportunities have arisen for a partnership between our two great democracies." Condoleezza Rice concluded: "As President Bush said in New Delhi this month, India in the 21st century is a natural partner of the United States because we are brothers in the cause of human liberty".

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