India test-fires nuclear-capable missile

NEW DELHI (AP) — India test-fired a medium-range, nuclear-capable missile Wednesday from a land-based launcher in eastern India, a defense ministry official said.

The weapon tested was a K-15 missile, an undersea submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of up to 435 miles, said the officer on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

It was fired from a test range in Chandipur in eastern Orissa state, nearly 700 miles southeast of New Delhi.

Issues: Nuclear Weapons, Waste & Energy

The months-long military standoff between India and Pakistan intensified several weeks ago when suspected Islamic militants killed more than 30 people at an Indian base in the disputed territory of Kashmir. As U.S. diplomatic pressure to avert war intensifies, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is going to India and Pakistan this week to discuss with his South Asian counterparts the results of a classified Pentagon study that concludes that a nuclear war between these countries could result in 12 million deaths.

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has conducted its own analysis of the consequences of nuclear war in South Asia. Prior to this most recent crisis we calculated two nuclear scenarios. The first assumes 10 Hiroshima-sized explosions with no fallout; the second assumes 24 nuclear explosions with significant radioactive fallout. Below is a discussion of the two scenarios in detail and an exploration of several additional issues regarding nuclear war in South Asia.

Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Forces

It is difficult to determine the actual size and composition of India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals, but NRDC estimates that both countries have a total of 50 to 75 weapons. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we believe India has about 30 to 35 nuclear warheads, slightly fewer than Pakistan, which may have as many as 48.

Both countries have fission weapons, similar to the early designs developed by the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. NRDC estimates their explosive yields are 5 to 25 kilotons (1 kiloton is equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT). By comparison, the yield of the weapon the United States exploded over Hiroshima was 15 kilotons, while the bomb exploded over Nagasaki was 21 kilotons. According to a recent NRDC discussion with a senior Pakistani military official, Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons are mounted on missiles. India’s nuclear weapons are reportedly gravity bombs deployed on fighter aircraft.

NRDC’s Nuclear Program initially developed the software used to calculate the consequences of a South Asian nuclear war to examine and analyze the U.S. nuclear war planning process. We combined Department of Energy and Department of Defense computer codes with meteorological and demographic data to model what would happen in various kinds of attacks using different types of weapons. Our June 2001 report, “The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change,” is available at http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/warplan/index.asp.

US-India nuclear deal violates NPT

Sunday expressed concern about America-India nuclear deal saying the deal has violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He said the countries which are not members of the NPT cannot make use of the privileges of the treaty. The method used by several nuclear states to transfer the technology to non-members of the NPT, will create new crises for the international community, he added.

India, France set to sign nuclear agreement

(PTI) India and France are poised to ink a landmark civil nuclear deal similar to the one with the United States, which will be the first such agreement to be initialled by any country with New Delhi signalling an end to its 34-year-old nuclear apartheid.

Though Indian officials said that the Indo-French Nuclear Cooperation Agreement is expected to be signed soon, France gave its clear indications that it will be inked during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Paris tomorrow for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy had told PTI that the prospects of cooperation between France and India in the civil nuclear field are “very promising” considering his country’s expertise, long tradition of cooperation with New Delhi and an atmosphere of trust.

India-US in last nuclear push

Bush amid frantic efforts to win US Congressional support for the two countries’ nuclear deal.

The controversial accord needs to be pushed through Congress before lawmakers conclude this year’s session to campaign for November’s elections.

Correspondents say its ratification will be a complicated process.

US officials hope Congress will approve the deal before the leaders meet later on Thursday in Washington, reports say.

Congress is due to go into recess at the end of this week.

India-Uranium Smuggling

Police in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya arrested five people, including a tribal village headman, on charges of smuggling uranium, officials said.

A police spokesman said the arrests were made after they found a packet containing some powdery substance from a village headman at Mairang in the West Khasi Hills district, about 40 km from state capital Shillong.

“We seized the packet from the possession of the village headman and took him to custody and later arrested four other people in the same case,” police chief of the West Khasi Hills district M Kharkrang said by telephone.

India arrests for ‘uranium theft’

Police in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya say they have arrested five people on charges of smuggling uranium ore.

Only one packet of unprocessed uranium was found on them, but the police say the gang could have stolen more.

It is not clear how much ore the group had, or what it planned to do with it.

The arrests are at an embarrassing time for India, just days after the Nuclear Suppliers Group ended a ban on civilian nuclear trade with the country.

Indian officials had worked hard to persuade members of the group, which governs global trade in nuclear components, that its nuclear industry was in safe hands.

Uranium is the basic fuel for nuclear weapons, but it has to go through complex processes before it it is sufficiently enriched for use.

‘Stolen’

Police are not sure whether those detained were part of an organised global enterprise, or simply some amateurs, trying to make some quick money.

The seizure was made in the village of Mairang on Monday when police detained four people, including a village headman, for stealing a quantity of uranium.

A fifth man surrendered to the police on Tuesday after police carried out a search of the area.

“We seized a packet, just one packet, containing uranium ore from a village headman. It has the seal of India’s Atomic Minerals Division, so we are taking this very seriously,” said M Kharkrang, police superintendent of West Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya.

Mr Khakrang said they were looking for the son of an employee of the Atomic Minerals Division – , which looks after the country’s uranium mines – who is alleged to have stolen the packet from Domiosiat.

“The young man is still absconding,” he said.

In May this year, police in Meghalaya arrested five people for stealing uranium ore.

Atomic Club Votes to End Restrictions on India

The worldwide body that regulates the sale of nuclear fuel and technology approved a landmark deal on Saturday to allow India to engage in nuclear trade for the first time in three decades, after a pressure campaign by the Bush administration and despite concerns about setting off an arms race in Asia.

Only one hurdle now remains for the deal: final approval by the United States Congress. But passage is likely to be difficult, considering both political opposition and dwindling time in the Congressional calendar before November’s elections.

If the agreement ultimately goes through, it would stand as a symbol of the deepening strategic ties between the United States and India, seen as a potential balancing power to a rising China. It would also be enormously lucrative for sellers of nuclear fuel and technology all over the world; India plans to import at least eight nuclear reactors by 2012, according to projections by the State Department.

India Wins Accord to End 34-Year Ban on Nuclear Trade (Update3)

India won the right to buy atomic- energy equipment after a suppliers’ group lifted a three-decade ban on exports to the country, swayed by promises that the nation will keep its moratorium on nuclear-bomb tests.

“This constitutes a major landmark in our quest for energy security,” Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in televised comments. “This decision will open a new chapter in India’s cooperation with other countries in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

India has suffered power shortages as the economy has grown more than 8 percent annually since 2003, increasing demand from cement companies and steelmakers. The U.S. made the proposal to the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group to give the south Asian country access to atomic fuels and technologies.

“It’s really a very big step forward for the nonproliferation framework,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters during a trip to Tunisia and Algeria.

Rice said she spoke with Chinese officials this morning and negotiators from Ireland and Austria in recent days. The NSG, founded in 1974 to prevent countries from copying India’s use of imported technology to make its first atomic bomb, needed a unanimous vote to pass the deal.

Areva, Toshiba, GE

The waiver means that companies including France’s Areva SA, Russia’s Rosatom Corp. and Japan’s Toshiba Corp. will be able to export nuclear equipment to India. General Electric Co. and other U.S. companies will have to wait until Congress ratifies a 2006 trade pact backed by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

General Electric, the world’s biggest maker of energy- generation equipment, said Aug. 25 that it may lose contracts in India to French, Russian and Japanese rivals if the U.S. Congress doesn’t ratify a U.S.-India nuclear deal soon after the agreement wins approval from the Suppliers Group.

Rice said the U.S. has talked to India about the potential competitive disadvantage.

“I think they recognize and appreciate American leadership on this issue,” she said. “Because of that I think we’ll have ways to talk them about not disadvantaging American companies.”

Still, she said “the best thing would be to get it through Congress.”

Congressional Approval

Congress, starting its next session on Sept. 8, may not be able to endorse the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement before it adjourns on Sept. 26, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, a California Democrat, wrote in an Aug. 5 letter to Rice.

The U.S.-India Business Council, which advocated the nuclear accord, issued a statement saying it will lobby for congressional approval. Rice said she talked with 12 committee chairmen in the weeks before the NSG decision to urge them to approve the agreement.

“I’ll have those conversations again most likely Monday or Tuesday as well as trying to see whether the leadership believes that this can go forward,” Rice told reporters today at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in the Algerian capital Algiers. “I don’t think most people thought we were going to be able to get this through the NSG this weekend.”

Fresh India nuclear talks begin

The group of countries which regulates global nuclear trade is meeting in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to discuss a landmark Indian-US nuclear deal.

A waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group would help India finalise the deal.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has already backed the controversial accord.

India’s government says the deal is vital to meet its energy demands.