“In general, the United States (like other NSG participants) relies upon IAEA inspections and monitoring. However, the United States would in fact be able to conduct ‘special verification visits’ in the form of fall-back safeguards as required by the US-India agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation in the event that IAEA safeguards were not being applied.”

During the debate, Senator Biden, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, observed, “Indian officials are reportedly upset that American personnel might need to visit India’s nuclear sites. It should come as no surprise, however, that we need to ensure that US nuclear materials, equipment, and technology are not diverted to military uses.” He emphasised that, apart from other factors, the US is bound by its obligations under Article I of the NPT not to allow such diversion when it enters into nuclear cooperation agreements with Non- Nuclear Weapon States, “And India remains a Non-Nuclear Weapon State under both the NPT and US law, despite the fact that now it does have nuclear weapons.”

So, if, as the prime minister put it, American inspectors will not be allowed to “roam around” in our nuclear plants, will they be allowed to loiter in or march through them? Is that the distinction that we will now be fed?

On top of Section 107, there is now Section 115. As Dr Gopalakrishnan, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has pointed out, this new section was suddenly, and without any discussion at all, inserted into the bill on the floor of the Senate. Under it, Indian nuclear establishment is obliged to enter into “cooperative research” about technologies and practices for non-proliferation with a new agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration - an agency that had not figured in the Indo-US discussions at all, and whose principal function has hitherto been the denuclearisation of the erstwhile Soviet satellites.

... contd.