India, Japan sign historic nuclear cooperation deal

The bipartite civil nuclear agreement is intended to open the Indian market to overseas reactor suppliers. India, as we know, is not party to the Non proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and Japan is. This treaty allows India and Japan to share the required nuclear technology despite that. Also this deal is a show of unity against China.  

Japan, is one of the leaders in the nuclear energy market and an atomic deal with facilitate the coming of US-based nuclear plant makers Westinghouse Electric Corporation and GE Energy Inc to set up atomic plants in India as both these conglomerates have Japanese investments. In fact, India has already allotted land for nuclear plants to GE-Hitachi, a project in which Japan has an investment.

Since Japan has already suffered the consequences of a nuclear attack it is moving very cautiously, especially since India has refused to sign the NPT because of the growing military and nuclear might of China and Pakistan. So, Japan is demanding additional proliferation guarantees from India and has asked for an 'automatic nullification' clause in case India goes back on its word.

This deal was initiated on Shinzo Abe's earlier visit to India but due to technical and legal differences, it had been put on the back burner. Today, PM Narendra Modi hailed the signing of this deal as a ‘historic step’. "Today's signing of the Agreement for Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy marks a historic step in our engagement to build a clean energy partnership," Modi said.

"Our cooperation in this field will help us combat the challenge of Climate Change. I also acknowledge the special significance that such an agreement has for Japan," he said and thanked Abe, Japanese government and Parliament for their support to this agreement.

 Other nations who have signed civil nuclear deal with India include the US, Russia, South Korea, Mongolia, France, Namibia, Argentina, Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia.

• nuclear
• India
• Japan