Indian Mounting Uranium Stash

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Voice of Journalists opines that in 2005, Indian nuclear reactors were on the brink of running out of uranium owing to the insufficient uranium stockpiles. However, because of NSG waiver granted to India for successful Indo-U.S nuclear deal, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently pronounced a deal, wherein Canadian Cameco Corporation will supply India with 3,000 metric tonnes of Uranium over the next five years. Interestingly, the deal comes 45 years after Canada officially banned all exports of uranium to India in 1974, following the India Smiling Buddha nuclear test. Moreover, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sealed a civil nuclear deal to sell uranium to India as well. In a similar vein, Kazakhstan, recently, signed an agreement with India to supply India with 5,000 tonnes of uranium over the next five years. In this way, Indo-U.S nuclear deal has provided India with surplus uranium that could easily be converted for military usage that would surely disturb strategic equilibrium in Asia, specially South Asia.

Under the Nuclear Deal, India would also be eligible to buy U.S. dual-use nuclear technology, including materials and equipment that could be used to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, potentially creating the material for nuclear bombs. The India-US nuclear deal is very significant to Beijing because it is perceived as a tactic of the U.S. grand strategy to contain a Chinese rise. Pakistan nuclear policy has always been India-centric. As there are no sufficient safeguards that halt any possible uranium diversion for military purposes, and if India went for the advancement of its nuclear weapons either quantitatively or qualitatively, then Pakistan would likely follow the path, consequently, aggravating nuclear arms race in the region.

Original URL: http://www.voiceofjournalists.com/indias-mounting-uranium-stash/