Read Editorial with D2G Ep – LXXIII

In Read Editorial With D2G
February 8, 2016

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EPISODE – LXXIII
TOPIC: Nuclear ambiguities
BLOG: The Hindu
WRITER: The Editorial
GENRE: Editorial

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MEANINGS are given in BOLD and ITALIC

India’s nuclear politics was in the limelight (If someone is in the limelight, a lot of attention is being paid to them, because they are famous or because they have done something very unusual or exciting) again last week, and not for the best of reasons. More than five years after it signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC), India ratified the insurance pooling agreement, which pertains(If one thing pertains to another, it relates, belongs, or applies to it) to civil liability in the event of a nuclear accident in any of the acceding countries. Prima facie (Prima facie is used to describe something which appears to be true when you first consider it), this was a good move, bringing to an end a game of will-they-or-won’t-they, which had cast India in poor light internationally and which sat uncomfortably beside three hard-fought nuclear landmarks — the India-U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement (CNA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver, both passed in 2008, and India’s Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA), which became law in 2010. However, India’s CSC ratification does not clear the air so far as an important stumbling block to bilateral nuclear commerce is concerned: is CLNDA truly in conformity with the CSC, as Indian officials have repeatedly claimed, or does it cast a shadow of doubt on supplier liability, which is a matter of critical importance to U.S. nuclear corporations? The ambiguity stems from two clauses of CLNDA, Sections 17(b) and 46. Under Section 17(b), liability for a nuclear accident can be channelled from the operator, which is the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, to suppliers of nuclear material, specifically if the accident is due to an act of the supplier or his employee, which includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent (Latent is used to describe something which is hidden and not obvious at the moment, but which may develop further in the future) defects or sub-standard services. Section 46 permits victims of a nuclear incident to sue the operator or the supplier for damages applying tort (A tort is something that you do or fail to do which harms someone else and for which you can be sued for damages) law, even though such proceedings would be beyond the scope of CLNDA and its liability cap, and thus exposing suppliers to unlimited liability. Both clauses are likely to raise suppliers’ cost of insurance cover, possibly beyond what is feasible commercially and within the confines (To confine something to a particular place or group means to prevent it from spreading beyond that place or group) of competitive energy pricing.

India’s CSC ratification is a reminder of the steep fall from the heady days of the announcement of the CNA a decade ago to the weak and unconvincing efforts by the Narendra Modi administration, following U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India, to persuade corporations such as General Electric-Hitachi and Westinghouse that they would not be liable in the event of an accident. India’s reliance (A person’s or thing’s reliance on something is the fact that they need it and often cannot live or work without it) on contractual rules and parliamentary debates to explain away supplier concerns has been greeted with scepticism by representatives of U.S. nuclear corporations — first on the grounds that no rule can supersede (If something is superseded by something newer, it is replaced because it has become old-fashioned or unacceptable) constitutional statute, and second, as there are other, on-record views in Parliament that contradict those cited by the MEA. While the liability morass has stymied (If you are stymied by something, you find it very difficult to take action or to continue what you are doing) U.S. investment in Indian reactors, Russia, France and Japan have moved forward with their respective bilateral agreements for nuclear commerce. This suggests that the recognition of India as a responsible nuclear power by the international community — the U.S. and the other NSG states — has allowed for windows of opportunity for nuclear commerce in India, even in the post-Fukushima world.

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