India, Canada to sign civil nuclear cooperation agreement

Bal Krishna and V S Chandrasekar
Toronto, Jun 27 (PTI) Thirty-six years after Canada
slapped sanctions on India after it exploded an atomic device,
the two countries will sign a civil nuclear agreement Sunday
night paving the way for supply of uranium and cooperation in
research, development and radiation safety.
A research partnership to improve the pressurised
heavy-water reactors used by both countries is also being
planned, official sources said on Sunday.
The civil nuclear cooperation agreement will be inked
when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets his Canadian
counterpart Stephen Harper for a "substantive" bilateral
engagement.
The move comes 36 years after Canada slapped sanctions
on India after it exploded an atomic device using a Canadian-
made nuclear reactor.
"This is an opportunity for the two countries to sell
heavy-water technology to third-party countries," official
sources said and added that India would seek to market the
technology to third countries like Jordan, Turkey and
Thailand.
The sources said that the deal was driven by climate
change concerns, India's voracious appetite for power and
energy security issues.
Canada, which is the world's largest producer of
uranium, has become the eighth country with which India
has reached civil nuclear agreement since the NSG lifted a
34-year-old ban on India to join global nuclear trade in
September 2008.
Other countries with which India has signed a nuclear
deal are the US, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Argentina and
Namibia.
Indian officials say the engagement between Singh and
Harper will give a fresh impetus to the economic and
commercial cooperation between India and Canada in the areas
of Science and Technology, health, agriculture and culture.
The nuclear pact would cover areas of research and
development in nuclear energy, nuclear waste management,
radiation safety and environment protection, they said.
Canadian companies are already looking to capitalise
on this emerging market, the sources said.
The sources said that Cameco, the Saskatoon-based
uranium giant with mines in Saskatchewan and Kazakhstan,
established a sales office in the southern Indian city of
Hyderabad in September last year.
Meanwhile, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which
makes Canadian heavy-water reactors, is also on the hunt for
new customers.
The company is one of the only large players in the
global nuclear power market to use heavy-water technology.
With customers in Romania, South Korea and Argentina,
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has been unsuccessful in its
efforts to land a buyer for its next-generation reactor, the
ACR-100. PTI BK/VSC
RDM


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