New Delhi, August 4
Asserting that the nuclear agreement spelt out in the Joint Statement issued by India and the United States during his recent visit to Washington was “worth taking a risk”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today assured the Rajya Sabha that it would widen the country’s energy capabilities and bolster development.
Taking the same path that he took in the Lok Sabha yesterday, the Prime Minister assured the Rajya Sabha that the agreement would in no way compromise the country’s autonomy on its security-related nuclear capabilities. DC Manmohan Singh said the agreement once implemented would bolster the country’s development.
Winding up a nearly four-hour discussion in the Rajya Sabha on his recent visit to the United States, the Prime Minister said, “What we have done during our visit is if there are risks, they are our calculated risks. They are worth taking to achieve 8 to 10 per cent economic growth rate and develop infrastructure to prevent what we saw in Mumbai during the recent downpour.”
Reassuring the Elders in his soft but assertive tone, the Prime Minister said, “There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that our nuclear research programme will suffer. There should be no doubt that our strategic assets programme will not remain exclusively in our own hands”.
In a pointed reference to senior Rajya Sabha Member P.C. Alexander that the agreement entered into had the risk of US Congress’s rejection, Dr Manmohan Singh said, “In life, nothing is very certain...We have to take precaution, but not to take risk will be an act of lethargy.
“We need to take calculated risks. If there are risks (in the Joint Statement) they are calculated risks and they are worth taking,” the Prime Minister said.
“India would decide what would be civilian and what would be military. We have the essential safeguards built into this Joint Statement which will ensure that India’s autonomy and independence in the management of its nuclear assets is not compromised in any way.”
Taking a dig at BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s reference to US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burn’s remarks that India had virtually conceded to everything that signatories to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have agreed to, the Prime Minister said, “She (Ms Swaraj) preferred to believe him than me. She has greater confidence in what he said than me.”
Dr Manmohan Singh asserted the if what US President George Bush has assured and if implemented by the Congress, India would have a full equal status with regard to international trade in civilian nuclear facility.
He denied the Opposition charge that they had not been consulted on the pact, saying that he had two separate meetings with BJP leaders and those from Left parties before and after the visit.
