The Indo-US nuclear deal is under threat!

Terming the passing of the civil nuclear liability bill by the Parliament as 'flawed', two leading South Asia analysts have warned that this flawed legislation would cast a pall over the historic Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and eviscerate all the gains Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gained by signing this accord.

Ashley Tellis, one of the foremost strategic experts in the country and an erstwhile Bush administration official who served in both the State Department and the National Security Council and was intimately involved in negotiating this deal, told rediff.com that 'the Nuclear Liability Bill represents a high-risk gamble that could completely undermine Dr Singh's vision of an expanded Indian civil nuclear programme.'

He warned that "if the bill undermines the programme -- by preventing private suppliers, both Indian and foreign, from entering the Indian nuclear market -- it would eviscerate all the gains that the prime minister secured by signing the deal."

Tellis, now a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace -- a leading Washington think tank, said, "There are some in the Congress and the BJP who believe that the Indian nuclear market is so large that private suppliers would not risk the loss of revenue by sitting out -- even though they would bear unprecedented liability if they entered the Indian nuclear market under the current terms of the bill."