India and Russia sign pact for N-reactors

New Delhi: India and Russia signed a long-pending agreement for cooperation in the civilian nuclear energy field, besides nine other key accords as Russian President Dmitri Medevdev, on his maiden visit to India.

The agreements were signed after wide-ranging talks between Medevdev and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as New Delhi rolled out a red-carpet welcome for the visiting dignitary.

Though the two countries also signed a contract for the supply of 80 MI-17V-5 helicopters by Russia to India, it was quite clear that they were finding it difficult to resolve their differences on some major defence deals. However, Medvedev described these differences as minor in nature.

At a joint press conference with Manmohan Singh, Medvedev, who took over from Vladimir Putin as the Russian President earlier this year, said the two countries had identified ways to remove irritants which have hit negotiations on deals pertaining to Admiral Gorshkov, Akola class nuclear submarines and T-90 tanks.

Among the accords, the most significant is the one on cooperation in the civilian nuclear energy field, under which Russia will construct four additional nuclear power plants at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu and also assist India in the construction of Russian designed nuclear power plants at new sites in this country.

Russia has thus become the third country with which India has signed a nuclear deal after it got approval from the nuclear suppliers’ group (NSG) to undertake nuclear commerce. It has already inked nuclear deals with France and the US to meet its growing energy needs.

According to a joint declaration signed by Medvedev and Singh, the two sides underlined the importance of nuclear energy as a clean and safe source of energy to meet growing energy requirements and welcomed the recent decision of the NSG on nuclear cooperation with India.

The agreement was ready even during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow in November last year but the two sides decided to ink it only after the NSG nod for India.

The other pacts were: protocol on the 14th session of the Indo-Russian inter-governmental commission on trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation; MoU between the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Russian Federal Space Agency on joint activities in the field of human spaceflight programme, joint action programme for cooperation in the field of tourism, agreement between the Financial Intelligence Unit of India and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of Russia; and MoU between co-chairs of the CEO’s council. The last agreement was signed on behalf of India by Mukesh Ambani, managing director of Reliance Industries Limited.

Moscow reaffirmed its support for India as a deserving and strong candidate for the permanent membership in an expanded UN Security Council. They expressed satisfaction at the progress towards achieving the target of bilateral trade volume of $10 billion by 2010.

On the current global financial crisis, the two sides emphasised the importance of comprehensive reform of the international financial and economic architecture in order to adapt it to new realities in global economy and agreed to cooperate in various formats to promote a more just world economic order.