Revival of India-US civilian nuclear deal: a boost for New Delhi

But hurdles remain as both sides will need to iron out issues like India's tough nuclear liability laws

- Nirmala Ganapathy

A US push to revive a stalled civilian nuclear deal with India comes at an opportune time for New Delhi, with Washington seeking to remove leading Indian atomic firms from a blacklist that had hindered the South Asian nation's access to certain technologies from the US apart from joint collaborations.

It comes at a time when India is making a renewed push to boost nuclear power generation capacity as a means to achieve its clean energy ambitions and climate goals.

Hurdles remain, however, with nuclear experts noting that the two countries would need to come to an agreement on sticky issues like India's tough nuclear liability laws, which had led to the original deal that was finalized in 2008 not being fully implemented.

India's nuclear liability laws, which put the onus of any accident on the operator rather than the manufacturer of a nuclear power plant, spooked foreign firms, with US plans to set up nine reactors not materializing so far.

For now, the US is seen to have taken the first step towards resuscitating the India-US civilian nuclear deal.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Jan 6 revealed that the US is finalizing plans to remove leading Indian nuclear firms from the US' Entity List - a list of individuals, businesses and organizations that are subject to export restrictions and licensing requirements for certain goods and technologies - after talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval during a visit to India.

Indian state entities were put on the list in response to India carrying out nuclear tests in 1998.