India's Communists, key allies of the federal ruling coalition, are holding a protest rally against a nuclear accord with the U.S., mounting pressure on the government to halt talks with the atomic-energy regulator.
Communist party members plan to march to a venue near the Indian federal parliament in the capital this afternoon in a protest coinciding with the visit of the country's delegation to the 51st General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The rally is part of a broader campaign by the Communists against an agreement they say will compromise India's sovereignty and tie the South Asian nation to U.S. interests.
“There is no compromise in our stand,'' Nilotpal Basu, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said in New Delhi today. “We want to tell the public about the harmful impact of this accord, which the government is trying to foist on the nation.''
The rally comes before a meeting tomorrow between the ruling Indian National Congress and the Communists on the contentious aspects of the agreement that promises nuclear technology and fuel to Indian power plants.
The South Asian country needs to negotiate specific safeguards with the IAEA for its civilian nuclear-power plants, a step the Communists want deferred until their objections to the accord are discussed. India's ruling coalition has formed a panel to examine the implications of the nuclear accord in a bid to pacify the Communists.
Hyde Act
The panel will address concerns of the Communist parties on how the U.S. Hyde Act will govern the so-called 123 agreement that gives effect to the accord. The panel's findings will be considered before the nuclear agreement becomes operational, India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Aug. 30.
India hasn't yet approached the global atomic-energy monitor for the safeguard talks, IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei said yesterday, the Press Trust of India reported from Vienna. The IAEA described the India-U.S. nuclear accord as a step “in the right direction,'' Press Trust reported.
Clearance by the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an informal grouping of countries supplying fissile material and technologies, will clear the way for the accord, a key element of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy, to be approved by the U.S. Congress.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is pushing ahead with the agreement so India can acquire reactors from companies such as Areva SA, the world's largest maker of nuclear power stations, and General Electric Co. to plug an energy shortfall.
Singh's Indian National Congress party-led coalition has 226 seats in the 545-seat lower house, or Lok Sabha, 47 short of a majority. That shortfall is bridged by the Communists, with their 59 seats.
