US lifts curbs, clears way for N-tech to India

In a significant follow-up to the commitments made during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Washington visit, United States has taken Ind...

In a significant follow-up to the commitments made during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Washington visit, United States has taken India off the list of countries on which it imposes unilateral restrictions for non-proliferation reasons.

The NP-2 list includes Iraq, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and Libya apart from India. These restrictions also automatically apply on Iran and Cuba for which it has a different set of export requirements.

The NP-2 breather comes along with its decision to drop six Indian nuclear and space facilities from the entities list. As reported first by The Indian Express, reactors 1 & 2 of the safeguarded facilities in Rajasthan, Tarapur and even Koodankulam have now been officially dropped from the list.

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Three of ISRO’s sub-entities — the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network, the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit at Thiruvanthapuram, and the Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad — are also off the entities list.

But with India also being removed from the NP-2 list, sources said, a range of high-technology items have been freed from stringent licensing requirements. These can now be supplied to these six nuclear and space facilities.

These include equipment like generators and graphite rods needed for reactors that produce electricity. Besides this, depleted uranium with certain specifications and oscilloscopes can be imported more easily after this decision.

The decision is also siginificant because equipment such as oscilloscopes are used across different industries and have been among the most-sought- after high-technology items from the US. In all, there are about 11 such items which includes software needed in many of these nuclear and space facilities.