Why a civil nuclear deal PM Modi will sign with Japan today is huge for India

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, November 11, 2016: One of the highlights of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Tokyo is the landmark civil nuclear deal he is likely to sign with Japan later today. Negotiations for the nuclear deal between the two sides have been going on for a number of years, but the progress was halted because of political resistance in Japan after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

 

The two countries had sealed a broad agreement during Shinzo Abe’s visit to India last December, but the final deal was put on hold as certain technical and legal issues were to be thrashed out.

Here’s why a nuclear deal with Japan matters for India:

A deal that will allow Japan to supply nuclear reactors, fuel and technology is ready for signing after six years of negotiations.
   
India is in advanced negotiations with US-based Westinghouse Electric, owned by Japan’s Toshiba, to build six nuclear reactors in southern India.
   
India plans to ramp up nuclear capacity more than ten times by 2032.
   
A deal with Japan is significant because India is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a major condition earlier put by Tokyo.
   
Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, has been seeking assurances from New Delhi that it would not conduct nuclear tests any more.
   
India has declared a moratorium on such testing since its last nuclear test in Rajasthan’s Pokharan desert in 1998.
   
India calls the NPT discriminatory and says it is concerned about nuclear-armed China and Pakistan in its neighbourhood.
   
The nuclear agreement with Japan follows a similar one with the United States in 2008 which gave India access to nuclear technology after decades of isolation.
   
The India-Japan civil nuclear deal also matters because China’s regional influence in South Asia continues to grow and Donald Trump’s election throws US policies across Asia into doubt.
   
India, Japan and the US have been building security ties and holding three-way naval exercises, but Trump’s ’America First’ campaign promise has stirred concern about a reduced US engagement in the region.