The Russians Want Zero Nuclear Liability Too

Kudankulam clouds PM’s Moscow visit

Russian envoy to India Alexander M Kadakin told a news conference here last week that Moscow would expect that the NPCIL and JSC Atomstroyexport to strike a  deal for the third and fourth reactors at Kudankulum under the same terms and conditions as the ones applicable to the first and second. 

Moscow pointed it out to New Delhi that India had no legal regime for nuclear liability, when the intergovernmental agreement was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 or when the JSC Atomstroyexport and NPCIL clinched the deal for the first two reactors in 2002.

Looks slightly more justified than prospective zero-liability.

Nuclear Deal/Bill And Our Natural Partnership

Brahma Chellaney in The Hindu:

Creating an artificial market with no-strings subsidies and electricity supply at state-supported rates is no prudent way to meet energy needs. The proposed arrangements actually seek to create a win-win situation for foreign vendors by ensuring there is no downside to their business. By rigging commercial terms in favour of select foreign suppliers, the arrangements, in effect, promote unfair business practices and cartelisation.

Manmohan Singh's dogged persistence in this whole nuclear deal/liability bill matter is mystifying. And the BJP support bought by opaque behind-the-scenes dealings: "Narendra Modi let off in barter for Bill".

And what is our natural partner and the object of Manmohan Singh's devotion up to? Making thinly-veiled threats: U.S. tries to armtwist India on Dow issue. From the email sent by the Deputy National Security Advisor to Montek Ahluwalia:

“We are aware of this issue and we will look into it. While I've got you, we are hearing a lot of noise about the Dow Chemical issue. I trust that you are monitoring it carefully. I am not familiar with all the details, but I think we want to avoid developments which put a chilling effect on our investment relationship.”

Natural partners in crime.

BJP: Virtual Opposition

There is really no difference between the BJP & the Congress as far as some things are concerned. And kow-towing to the US is one of them, as the deal on the nuclear liability bill shows:

A smooth passage in Parliament of the proposed nuclear civil liability Bill was ensured by the Union government on Tuesday after it took on board most of the suggestions made by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Among the changes agreed upon are trebling of the operator liability cap from Rs. 500 crore to Rs. 1,500 crore and specific exclusion of private operators in the nuclear sector.

Rs 1500 crore as compared to Rs 500 crore earlier? They must be joking. It is left to the Left to raise a dissenting voice:

The Left had raised four issues: India should not be part of any international convention, which, it felt, would limit the options to hold the suppliers liable; expand the scope of the proposed legislation to include non-civilian nuclear installations since in the case of an accident it might impact civilian population too; raise compensation cap to Rs.10,000 crore; and bring the supplier within the ambit of liability against the provision that mentions of such a clause in case of wilful problem in design.

Nuclear Liability: Accidents Happen

So why ignore that fact? From The Hindu:

The ongoing disaster of the petroleum volcano caused by blowout of the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should provide a sobering object lesson. Thinking that does not consider high-consequence but low-probability events borders on folly. BP also considered an uncontrolled blowout to be very low probability. As it turns out, BP, as one of the world's largest corporations, can provide the tens of billions of dollars of damages. But no nuclear company in the United States has the financial muscle to compensate a significant fraction of the maximum officially estimated damages.

Makes sense.