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Almost seven years to the week after India conducted its nuclear tests, the principle scientist who supervised the event and who was denied an American visa soon after will be visiting the United States. Dr R Chidambaram, who is now the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, will be in Washington on May 19 for talks with the US nuclear establishment. The scientist's post is of the rank of a minister of state. The high-level exchange centers around the proposed cooperation between the two sides on nuclear energy issues, including talks on relevant technologies and ways to get around the roadblocks.
Dr Chidambaram was Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission at the time of the tests and he played a key role in its execution, including on-site supervision. Weeks after the tests, he was scheduled to attend a meeting organized by the American Crystallographic Association in his capacity as vice-chairman of the International Union of Crystallographers.
But an enraged Clinton administration denied him a visa despite support for him from the American scientific community. Several other scientists were subsequently denied visas and researchers and engineers working on joint collaborations such as the LCA project were asked to return home. Ironically, Dr Chidambaram had been invited to witness a US nuclear test in Nevada in the late 1960s. It is a measure of how much things have turned around that besides Dr Chidambaram's upcoming visit, top officials of ISRO - another sanctioned entity - have also been visiting US for discussions with their counterparts in the American space establishment, with expectation that there might even be an American payload on Indian launch vehicles soon.
However, progress in the nuclear field has been more circumspect because of a welter of domestic legislations and international laws that frown on cooperation with countries that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which India has not signed). The Indian nuclear establishment also wants to preserve and develop its own indigenous and hard won progress in the field. New Delhi took a major step in meeting an American benchmark by introducing legislation in the Lok Sabha on Monday aimed at prohibiting unlawful WMD activities.
Both sides have expressed at the highest level their intent to cooperate on nuclear energy issues and Dr Chidambaram's visit suggests that it is being pursued vigorously, with a possible agreement by the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's arrives here on a bilateral visit end-July.
(source: TimesOfIndia.Com)
Dr Chidambaram was Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission at the time of the tests and he played a key role in its execution, including on-site supervision. Weeks after the tests, he was scheduled to attend a meeting organized by the American Crystallographic Association in his capacity as vice-chairman of the International Union of Crystallographers.
But an enraged Clinton administration denied him a visa despite support for him from the American scientific community. Several other scientists were subsequently denied visas and researchers and engineers working on joint collaborations such as the LCA project were asked to return home. Ironically, Dr Chidambaram had been invited to witness a US nuclear test in Nevada in the late 1960s. It is a measure of how much things have turned around that besides Dr Chidambaram's upcoming visit, top officials of ISRO - another sanctioned entity - have also been visiting US for discussions with their counterparts in the American space establishment, with expectation that there might even be an American payload on Indian launch vehicles soon.
However, progress in the nuclear field has been more circumspect because of a welter of domestic legislations and international laws that frown on cooperation with countries that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which India has not signed). The Indian nuclear establishment also wants to preserve and develop its own indigenous and hard won progress in the field. New Delhi took a major step in meeting an American benchmark by introducing legislation in the Lok Sabha on Monday aimed at prohibiting unlawful WMD activities.
Both sides have expressed at the highest level their intent to cooperate on nuclear energy issues and Dr Chidambaram's visit suggests that it is being pursued vigorously, with a possible agreement by the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's arrives here on a bilateral visit end-July.
(source: TimesOfIndia.Com)
posted by Shaking Shenoy at 5/10/2005 07:51:00 AM
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