On Dec 6, 2010 five agreements at $25 billion for two nuclear reactors to be supplied to India by France were inked in the presence of Sarkozy and Manmohan Singh, two more are to be supplied in the future. Sarkozy stated that he wants to make civilian nuclear cooperation the cornerstone of France’s ties with India. Sarkozy offered several titbits and bribes to the Indian PM who willingly accepted them, some of the choicest offerings were a permanent UNSC seat, membership to the Nuclear Supply Group and cooperation with France on their space program.

Two days earlier, on December 04, 2010 while Manmohan Singh was busy cozing up to French President Sarkozy, villagers and activists in several villages of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra came together to launch a campaign opposing what is supposed to be the first big benefit of the Indo-US nuclear deal - two 1,000 MW plants proposed to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) in Jaitapur. The actual plant site is situated at Madban, a village besides Jaitapur, however the project has been named after Jaitapur, as it the port for the project. The plants and the technological knowhow will be supplied by France Conglomerate AREVA.

Fearing a public protest, that the people might seek to exert their democratic right to protest, the state clamped curfew in Jaitapur, despite which villagers defied section 144 to form a human chain at the proposed nuclear plant site. Demanding that there should not be any nuclear plant in that region, the protestors carried banners and shouting slogans such as “Stop Anti People Nuclear Project !” “Scrap Jaitapur Nuclear Project which will destroy the economy and ecology of the Konkan!” “No Nuclear Plant in Jaitapur” “Scrap all Nuclear Projects in India” in English, French, Marathi and Hindi. The peaceful protesters were lathi charged and about 1500 people and practically all the leaders were detained by the police, of whom former Justice of Mumbai High Court, Justice Kolse Patil of Janhit Seva Samiti and Madhu Moite of Konkan Bachao Samiti were still under detention.

The people are united in their contention, that having nuclear plants in their neighbourhood is risky and therefore they will not allow the state government to acquire land even as a deadline looms to complete the acquisition process in this financial year for the first phase of the project. The government has long-term plans of expanding the project into a nuclear power park and pushing the production up to 10,000 MW. Villagers fear that radiation from the reactors will trigger health problems and hurt future generations, fishermen believe that their livelihood will be hit as the water from the plants will be released into the sea and will affect their catch. Nuclear power plants generate massive amounts of heat and in this case the AREVA European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) will be using sea water as a coolant. This process results in a sharp rise in the temperature where the super heated water from the plant is discharged into the sea, which is obviously going to adversely affect the 5000 large fishing community in this coastal area.

Surrounding hamlets and villages also saw huge protests, around 2,000 fishermen gathered in Nate at early noon, a village located just 2 km away from the proposed nuclear plant site and in Madban, the village closest to the proposed site, around 3,000 people were protesting. The protestors demanded a reassessment of the EIA report and insisted that the threat of building a nuclear plant on an earthquake prone zone must be addressed. According to the seismic survey of India, Jaitapur region has a high risk of earthquake damage, ranked as Zone IV on a five-grade scale. Several farmers also highlighted the major omissions of negative impacts in the Environmental Impact Assessment report (EIA).

The Jaitapur nuclear power project needs 968 hectares of land in five adjoining villages - Madban, Niveli, Karel, Mithgavane and Varliwada - which together have a population of 4,000. The mood of the peasantry and the affected fishermen is upbeat and positive and they are quite clear as to not wanting to engage with the government or NGOs on parting with their land and in refusing to ask for compensation. In 2008 various progressive groups organised themselves under the banner of “Konkan Bachao Samiti” which was the first organisation to undertake a campaign against the proposed nuclear plant as early as in 2008. The primary task was to build a people's movement against the project. From the very beginning Mumbai IFTU Committee was an active member of the Samiti and other than providing the movement with support, it also undertook an awareness campaign about the project while highlighting the dangers of radioactive waste. Currently a large part of the protest is organised by two other protest coalitions, “Konkan Vinashkari Prakalp Virodhi Kruti Samiti” and “Jan Hit Seva Samiti” while several other political groups, NGOs, Gandhians, CITU, Prerana, CRBS, Janvadi Mahila Sangathana have also lent their support to the movement.

There is a deep sense of desperation in France and Sarkozy to ensure that this deal for the proposed nuclear power projects must come through.

The recession impacted France less than other European countries, yet in 2009 France registered a rise in unemployment to 10% up from 7.4% in 2008; its deficit rose to 8% from 3.4% and it had to put into place a stimulus package of $35 billion in 2009, with additional $25 billion to “protect” French industry from foreign takeover and a $52 billion package for developing more R&D in Science and Technology. The major chunk of this “stimulus package” will go towards developing and promoting the high tech industry, defence and the construction industry. In 2009 industry contributed 18% of the GDP down from 26% in 1998 whereas services contribute 79.4, up from 66% in 1998. France has a diverse and important services sector. Paris has the fifth largest stock market in the world. France's 4 banks rank among the biggest 25 banks in the world and their insurance industry ranks fifth in the world.

Over the last few decades, since the 1970s France has been struggling hard to retain its prowess in heavy equipment, capital intensive production, one of the world leaders in Automobile, aircraft, nuclear power, metallurgy, chemicals, mechanical and electrical energy. France has few natural resources and is largely dependent on imports and extraction from its existing colonies. The OPEC oil hike in 1973 forced France to look for a more reliable form of power production and the choice was for nuclear and coal, however coal was apparently rejected because of environmental concerns, but the real reason was that thermal plants did not impose large capital investment and running costs suitable for big business. France has a highly regulated electricity generation and distribution system. France's electricity sector is dominated by the wholly state-owned utility company, Electricité de France (EdF), which produces, transports, and distributes over 95% of electricity in France. EdF is the last major state-run electricity monopolist in the EU, as most of France's neighbours have privatized their electricity companies. There has been, however, partial liberalization of some aspects of France's electricity sector attracting a lot of criticism from other EU members, especially Spain, UK and Germany, that while France is slow to open its own electricity market, it has heavy investments in the highly deregulated EU power market.

France is the world's largest nuclear power generator on a per capita basis, and ranks second in total installed nuclear capacity (behind the United States). Because of France's limited domestic energy sources, energy supply security and reliance on imports are major issues in France. Government policy has strongly promoted increases in nuclear power generation over the past three decades. Currently, about 77% of France's electricity comes from the country's 58 nuclear reactors. This represents a dramatic change from 1973, when fossil fuels accounted for more than 80% of French power generation. In September 2001, the French government restructured its nuclear sector into a single government holding company, Areva. The Areva Group is a combination of Cogema, Framatome, CEA Industrie, and the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), the French Atomic Energy Agency, which is the major shareholder of the Areva Group with nearly 80%. The group presides over the country's major nuclear enterprises, including mining, fuels, treatment, recycling, decontamination and engineering. According to the company official website, AREVA realized €13.16 billion in sales revenue in 2008 and €417 million in operating income. However, AREVA had 6.2 billion Euros of net debt at the end of 2009. In June 2010, it faced weakened profitability following a further €400 million provision for the over-running EPR in Norway. Nuclear power production is highly subsidised in France.

The Indian nuclear program was largely motivated by its defence program and technological upgradation. Till the 1990s during the pre liberalisation era, India aligned with the Soviet Social Imperialists and after its decline and the emergence of a unipolar world, the Indian ruling class ushered in neoliberal policies and started aligning with US imperialists. The recent recession has shaken the developed capitalist economies and despite major injection of capital, the recession continues to haunt the developed economies. One necessity of pulling out of the recession is the sale of capital intensive machinery and plants which also require large running costs and high maintenance. The developed countries are desperate to boost their economies through unequal trade with the developing nations and are finding willing partners with the Indian ruling elite within the UPA and the NDA. The developed nations in their desperation to complete sale of their nuclear plants and technology have been shown more than willing to modify their rules of engagement with countries and subordinate their NPT rhetoric to their business interests.

However, despite much fanfare surrounding these deals, some provisions of the Nuclear Liability Act are not to the liking of these countries. To appease the nuclear industry of the developed nations, there were several underhand and shameful attempts by the Manmohan Singh government to dilute the important provisions of the Nuclear Liability Bill to avoid fixing responsibility on the “supplier” of the equipment and materials to be used for constructing the nuclear plants. If we carefully study “The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010” we can clearly see that it puts all the liability squarely on the “operator” which in this case would be The Department of Atomic Energy and the Central Government while largely absolving the “supplier” or the “provider” for any liability, except under very specific and restrictive conditions as under clause 17(b) “(if) the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of supplier or his employee, which includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services.” These provisions, though weak and watered down, pose enough of a threat to the business interests of the developed nations, because it would be very difficult for them to buy insurance if there was even the remotest possibility of any liability coming on to the companies which produce the required materials and equipment.

With GE and Westinghouse lobbyists up in arms, the U.S. administration initially suggested that the Manmohan Singh government find a way to delete or negate the two offending sections. When the impossibility of this was pointed out, they suggested that NPCIL be asked contractually to accept the entire liability burden of its suppliers in the event of an accident. This suggestion was also been vetoed. Obama's visit to India was to press to ensure that its companies were legally exempted from any liability burden in the event of an accident occurring in an American-supplied nuclear reactor. Leaving aside the explosive political implications of a public sector company granting a free pass to an American supplier, legal advisers have pointed out that neither NPCIL nor the government can sign away the provisions for tort and criminal liability that have been embedded in the new law.

Even before Obama's visit to India this November there was a flurry of activity by the UPA to negate those sections which can hold foreign “suppliers” liable in the event of an nuclear accident, and protect the interests of big capital and industry and path provided for them was through the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC). This international covenant provides a framework for channelling liability and providing speedy compensation in the event of a nuclear accident. The IAEA is the “depository” of the CSC, which has so far been signed by 14 countries and ratified by four, including the U.S. The CSC will enter into force only when at least five countries with a minimum of 4,00,000 units of installed nuclear capacity ratify the treaty. Even if India ratifies it, which is unlikely to happen soon, the CSC will not enter into force unless at least one or two countries with a large civilian nuclear programme also do so. With India signing the CSC and the Obama administration issuing the requisite ‘Part 810' licensing certifications, the stage is now set for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. to begin full-fledged commercial negotiations with General Electric and Westinghouse for supply of two 1,000-MWe reactors. India promised the U.S. in 2008 that it would sign the CSC, a treaty that requires signatories to pass a domestic liability law in conformity with a model text. The CSC provides no forum for signatories to challenge each other's national laws only arbitration as well as adjudication by the International Court of Justice but the U.S. entered a reservation while ratifying the Convention in 2008 declaring “that it does not consider itself bound by these dispute settlement procedures.”

The U.S. insistence on India being a party to the CSC is different from the position of Russia and France, the other potential suppliers of nuclear equipment and materials to India. While the Indo-French Agreement of 2008 requires India only to “create a civil nuclear liability regime based on established international principles”, which would include provision for ‘right of recourse' as well, the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) of 2008 stipulates (Article 13.1) only strict and absolute liability of the NPP operator with no provision therein for the operator's recourse in case of a supplier's fault. A later proposal by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to include the right of recourse provision in the commercial contract with Atomstroyexport of Russia was apparently rejected by the latter, which stated that all contracts have to conform to the IGA. The constant insistence on a level playing field for U.S. companies, and its mention in the joint statement along with the remark on nuclear liability, suggests that the U.S. wants a level playing field vis-à-vis Russia in this regard.

Why would India give such an urgent deadline for ratification of the Convention when there is no such imperative for enabling nuclear commerce with other countries? Domestic legislation on civil nuclear liability, which conforms to international standards, was sufficient for this purpose, even when the USA took 11 years to ratify the convention. Potential nuclear suppliers to India, including American companies, have been doing business with countries that have not even signed the Convention.  Even the total available Convention fund works out to about $154 m (about Rs. 682 crore), of which only 50 per cent is available for damages within the territory of a Contracting Party. Moreover, this is available only if the damages exceed the maximum liability provided for in the national law, which in the case of the Indian Act in its present form is already about Rs. 2,100 crore. The question is whether this additional Contracting Parties' contribution of about Rs. 350 crore is significant enough for India to ignore the provisions of concern in the CSC.

A combination of CSC and provisions of the American law effectively negates the possibility of using the Right of Recourse provision of the Indian Act. Article XIII.6 of the CSC says: “A judgment… shall, upon being presented for enforcement in accordance with the formalities required by the law of the Contracting Party where enforcement is sought, be enforceable as if it were a judgment of a court of that Contracting Party. The merits of the claim on which the judgment has been given shall not be subject to further proceedings.” It can be argued that since the U.S. is a party to the CSC this provision can be invoked, and any judgment against a U.S. supplier in an Indian court would be deemed legally enforceable in the U.S. and the operator would be able to recover damages from the supplier. But in Article XIII.5 of the CSC it also states that “A judgment that is no longer subject to ordinary forms of review entered by a court of a Contracting Party having jurisdiction shall be recognised except… (c) where the judgment is contrary to the public policy of the Contracting Party within the territory of which recognition is sought….” the applicability to U.S. law would be its Price-Anderson Act (PAA) of 1957, which does not provide for the operator's right of recourse. The CSC-implementing U.S. legislation is part (Sec. 934) of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which was passed in December 2007 which clearly states: “This section does not provide an operator of a covered installation any right of recourse under the Convention.” This, therefore, means that if an Indian operator wins a case against a supplier in Indian courts, this cannot be enforced in the U.S. under the CSC as this judgment would be deemed contrary to U.S. public policy. So any claims of damages by an operator against a U.S. supplier under the Right to Recourse provisions of the Indian Act cannot actually be enforced. It therefore clear that the rush to ratify the Convention arises from U.S. interests and pressure and the corresponding remark was included in the Joint Statement on demand from the U.S. The fact that India rushed to sign the CSC shortly before Obama's arrival on October 27 is another indication that there was sustained U.S. pressure on India to sign the Convention with the UPA willingly capitulating to their terms.

Yet there are still major concerns and other pressing reasons why the developed nations will not actually invest in nuclear plants under the current laws. One of them would be the extension of liability to those manufacturers who produce smaller components or parts of machinery which are finally assembled by big corporations such as Areva or GE, Westinghouse-Toshiba and others. In particular, Japanese corporations are extremely concerned about this small provision which marginally protects India's interests. France, like the other big N-suppliers the US and Russia France, also has similar reservations and wants the liability of any nuclear incident or accident to rest solely on the “operator” and wants its firm, like Areva, to be buffered from the claims from damages from a nuclear accident. The foreign suppliers are insisting that this clause is at odds with what they consider “standard international practice” wherein liability is legally channelized only to the operator and the supplier is exonerated.

Under clause 7(a), the Act enjoins upon the government to make good on losses over and above the limited liability of the operator, in the event of a nuclear incident. It also makes the government liable in the case of an accident at a nuclear installation owned by it. The limited liability for this has been fixed at a mere 1500 crore, ($ 340 million) whereas in the Bhopal Gas accident case, in 1984 the court fixed damages at ($470 million) which was grossly inadequate for compensating the people on the widespread loss of lives, bad health and property. In one sweep, the UPA Govt. under the leadership of Manmohan Singh has turned its citizens into subjects, while bending backwards to accommodate the interests of global business and finance capital.

The Indian establishment has been falsely claiming their insistence on these nuclear deals for power generation, claiming that the agreement with Areva provides for two reactors and then four more leading finally to 10,000 mw of power, whereas India's current capacity is 4000 mw. The PMO also claims to be promoting this cooperation with France to greatly increase non-polluting supply of power to finally generate 20,000 MW by 2020. The truth is that even if India does generate this amount of power from nuclear energy its cost will be exorbitant and if we take into account the expected growth in overall power generation, nuclear energy will only contribute a mere 5% of the 4,00,000 MW to be produced. However if we look at the current manner in which nuclear technology is coming to India and the way in which it will be implemented, the costs of putting a nuclear plant is exorbitant, the time for installation and production of power is much longer than other forms of power generation, its running costs and maintenance and high insurance premiums, dependence on foreign suppliers for spares and maintenance eventually make nuclear technology a risky proposition for India.

India has adequate supplies of coal, while new reserves of oil have recently been discovered in the Krishna basin and in Barmer, large parts of India also have excess sun light throughout the year and the coastal belts are well suited for wind power generation. However, even though solar and wind are renewable energy, they do not provide much incentive to the developed nations and large corporations for investment, because they do not require much maintenance costs and the technology can easily be adapted and developed indigenously. Alone from the profits of the ten biggest oil monopolies in the year 2007 of 180 billion US-dollars, 450 000 wind power plants producing 7500 MW of power generation plants could be installed at a rough estimate of USD  2 million per MW. With the profits of the international energy monopolies within ten years, the entire worldwide demand in electricity could be shifted to renewable energy. Whereas the energy monopolies get 21 - 23 cents/kwh from the consumer, the small wind power plant suppliers get only 9 cents/kwh. Solar thermal power can be produced and transported for 5 cents/kwh. This shows that regenerative energy is available at low costs, but not the monopoly prices of the energy monopolies.

It is important for the developed nations to develop high tech, capital intensive technologies which are very specialised fields such as nuclear, nano technologies, space, defence, genetics and heavy engineering, while insisting that the developed nations import these technologies and remain productive only in labour intensive small engineering and non specialised forms of industry such as textiles, agro industry and handicraft. It is imperative for the developed nations to have an assured market for the specialised goods they have developed.

USA, Japan, France and Russia wish to control and curtail the growth of the indigenously developed space and India's advanced nuclear program while making India dependent on their technologies. India has already made strides in its Space and Nuclear Technology programs, recently India developed a fast breeder reactor using reprocessed fuel. All this was achieved despite India being excluded for 34 years from trade in nuclear plant or materials. The benchmarks which were achieved despite opposition from the developed nations, is now sought to be reversed and Manmohan Singh and the earlier NDA regime sought to dismantle the institutions built earlier and relegate us to a mere market for equipment and technology which the west desperately needs to offload.

Another important factor that governs the developed nations focus to dismantle Indian indigenous technological institutions for nuclear energy is the large presence of Thorium 232 in India. India's Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world's first reactor which uses thorium rather than depleted uranium. India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2011, following which five more reactors will be constructed. Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India's new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons.

The propaganda campaign launched by the government is desperately trying to push a “Green Power” eco-friendly label to nuclear power, that this power will bring “development” and progress to the Konkan region. What are hidden costs and dangers are that there are no known and fool proof methods to store nuclear waste and the current costs for decommissioning a nuclear plant are exorbitant. It is also important to note that the EPR which is being touted as “state of the art” is already running into serious implementation difficulties in a plant being setup by AREVA in Norway. This has resulted in huge costs overruns because of the delays. Recently AREVA also lost a $20 billion bid to supply EPRs to the UEA. The UAE favoured a Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO)-led consortium which beat those of GE+Hitachi and Areva to win a $20 billion tender for four 1,400MW civil nuclear power reactors of the Generation-3 APR-1400 kind, so there is no necessary consensus on the claim that EPR are the best possible reactors either.

Movement against Jaitapur project is witnessing the involvement for several groups, political parties and independents while other groups belonging to the Gandhians and NGOs are seeking to defuse and dampen people's anger to prevent the protests from turning into a militant mass movement. Parties such as Shivrajaya Party, a newly launched outfit by Retd. Brigadier Sudhir Sawant attempts to cash on the regional and chauvinist identities of Konkan.

While the ante has been raised in the Konkan belt of Ratnagiri, several divergent voices and movements have created coalition against the Jaitapur nuclear project. The power plant has assumed a political power-centric image, with Shiv Sena, stepping in to "save the fishing village". Sena CEO Uddhav Thackeray announced that his party would oppose the nuclear plant on the grounds of ecology conservation and loss of livelihood. The Sena is desperate to regain Konkan as its electoral stronghold and defeat Congress minister Narayan Rane.

If we study the projected power demand in the coming decade we can see that the greatest demand is from the urban and industrial centres surrounding Mumbai; Panvel, Thane, Neva Sheva. With burgeoning shopping malls, each of which consume electricity of up to a hundred villages and power hungry infrastructure and industrial development projects coming up, the power generated from Jaitapur project was never meant for “development and progress” of the local people and communities. It is a project for the benefit of the corporate while its cost will be borne by the peasantry and the people and risks shouldered by the common inhabitants of the region.