"Setback" to India's N-dream: Australian Parliament committee talks of "significant risks" in supplying uranium

A uranium mine in South Australia

By A Representative
In a setback to India, a new report by the Australian Parliament’s treaties committee has said that there are “some significant risks” in selling uranium to India. India sealed an agreement for the supply of uranium for “peaceful uses of nuclear energy” during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia in September 2014.
The just-released report wants the Australian government to commence selling uranium to India only when India achieves “full separation of civil and military nuclear facilities as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)”, with India establishing “an independent nuclear regulatory authority under law”, and this regulator is ensured complete “independence”.
The setback comes a week after Australian Minister of Defence Kevin Andrews met Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar in New Delhi on September 2, 2015.
The report, prepared under the chairmanship of Liberal MP Wyatt Roy, talks of “three areas of risk associated with the agreement”, to quote Roy. According to him, the first is the risk to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), to which India is “not a signatory”. In fact, according to him, India “exists in isolation from the nuclear nonproliferation mainstream.”
Wanting the Australian government to “engage in diplomatic effort” to produce a “genuine non-proliferation”, Roy, however, believes, as of today “it is not realistic to expect India to renounce the manufacture of nuclear weapons and dismantle its nuclear arsenal”, as the country “borders two other nuclear weapons states with which it is occasionally in conflict.”
“The second area of risk”, according to Roy, relates to “the regulation of India’s nuclear facilities”. Here, he says, “Both the Auditor-General of India and the International Atomic Energy Commission have identified a number of weaknesses in the regulatory framework that jeopardise nuclear safety and security.”
Given this framework, Roy says, the committee under him “has made a recommendation that the sale of uranium to India only commence when these weaknesses have been addressed.”
And the third risk, says Roy, relates to “two unresolved issues relating to the provisions of the Agreement”, especially the “the terminology used in the consent mechanism for the refinement of nuclear materials, and the question of whether the proposed Agreement breaches the Treaty of Rarotonga.”
The “risks” have be referred to alongside the report suggesting that it would make good business sense to sell uranium to India. It insists, Australia possesses 30 per cent of the known global reserves of uranium ore and the agreement with the Government of India “can double the size of Australia’s nuclear mining sector”, with Australian export income could “add up to $1.75b to the Australian economy”.
Meanwhile, the Australian Greens have said the agreement was putting “short-term political expedience above global security”. In their comment on the report, they have underlined, “As such, the Australian Greens cannot support this agreement and urge others to do likewise.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has asked the Australian government to ensure that all safeguards are in place before the treaty is ratified. “It is disingenuous for the committee to recommend ratification while simultaneously acknowledging the substantial deficiencies that must be addressed before the agreement can be acted on,” it said in a statement.
Says Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation, the report’s claims that the uranium mining industry will double as a result of the potential deal “do not stack up... Australian uranium production in 2014 was the lowest for 16 years. Uranium provides less than 0.2% of national export revenue and 0.02% of Australian jobs.”

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Counterview

Search This Blog