This is not yet clear that the left parties are against the nuclear deal, or against the US’s involvement in the nuclear deal. If we talk about the anti-capitalist ideologies of Indian communist parties regarding the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, we all know that the left parties were well aware of all the development since the Manmohan Singh government started taking steps in this direction one year before.

The left parties never raised the voice against the deal when India sent a diplomatic mission to US to sign the 123 agreement. What happened suddenly that they started threatening indications to withdraw support from the government on the deal issue?

Neither the timing of the extended threatens to the government nor the sudden ideological problem raised against the US in the left parties was looking logical.

On one hand, the Indian communists are opposing the nuclear deal that is well in the last stage of its completion now.

On the other hand, on the day when the CPM Politburo rejected the 123 agreement and threatened the UPA government on the deal, the Chinese communists launched the first nuclear power plant in northeastern China as the launching of a major plan to build 31 nuclear reactors by 2020.

According to the report, China started the construction at the Hongyanhe power plant off the Dalian coast of six 1000 MW reactors for an estimated $6.5 billion.

The first unit would probably start the power generation in next five years and the power generation in rest of the reactors would start by 2014. China has its nuclear deal in place to get the capacity to generate 40,000 MW nuclear power by 2020 with the help of its fuel supplies agreement with Australia.

China, as of now, produces just above 8500 MW power from its 11 reactors and India is slightly behind with 4000 MW power generation form its reactor those are facing fuel shortage. China has planned to add at least reactors per year till 2020 in the list of reactors to enhance the rapid economic growth in the country.

It has planned to have 150 nuclear reactors by the end of 2050 that would produce 150,000 MW of power. For that plan, China has already placed orders to buy four Westinghouse reactors from US.

When the communist China is taking the help of the US to enhance its nuclear capacity, why the Indian communists have those many ideological problems. This question came in my mind because communists from both the countries more or less similar ideological sources.

India needs the nuclear deal to maintain its high growth rate and is looking to expand its nuclear energy sector. If the US is helping India in this direction, what is the problem at all?

The complete nuclear deal process was backed by the desperate need to have access to the international fuel market to build more reactors in the country. This is the fact of the matter that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had decided not to sell fuel to non-NPT countries.

So, India, as non-signatory of the NPT, would not get fuel from any country without this Indo-US nuclear deal. India. One can feel the seriousness of the matter that India’s old friend, Russia, even wants India to first get an exemption from the NSG before selling any fuel.

All the options, to get the nuclear fuel from other countries, would be closed with the closing chapters of India-US nuclear deal. The nuclear reactors are already facing a acute fuel shortage that would create adverse condition for the power generation capacity in India.

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