India continues to lobby Australia over nuclear deal; Russia to set up four additional nuclear power plants in Kudankulam; Burns: India and US don’t have “all the time in the world” to complete the nuclear agreement
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    • Reports indicated that India continued to push the nuclear deal with the Australian govenment. Australia had recently announced its decision not to sell uranium to India, thereby reversing the decision taken by the John Howard administration. The Indian and Australian Prime Ministers are scheduled to meet twice in the year where the issue could be discussed. Earlier, Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister’s nuclear envoy, had also visited Australia1.

    In other news, India and Russia finalised plans to build four new nuclear power stations at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu. Moscow is already building two 1,000 megawatt light water nuclear power reactors at the site under the terms of an agreement made in June 1998. However, work on the new plants would only begin after the India-specific IAEA Safeguards and the NSG exemption are in place2.

    Meanwhile, Nicholas Burns, the pointman on the nuclear deal in the US State Department stated that India and the US did not have “all the time in the world” to complete the nuclear agreement3.

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