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Nuclear deal: the untold story from The Hindu

This means that the just passed nuclear agreement will reflect the interests of the U.S. energy industry, of the nuclear industry in particular. The details of the proposed deal, when reduced to basics, seem to bear this out. While the agreement is complex, one feature stands out: it calls on India to stop its thorium based research and development in exchange for uranium based technology and fuel (uranium) to be supplied by the United States. There is a great deal of verbiage about inspection and proliferation, but these are not central to the deal. It is best to focus on the central theme, which is `yes' to uranium and `no' to thorium.
It is this exchange that has the Indian scientific community up in arms against the deal. They fully realise that by agreeing to this deal India will be sacrificing its unique capability while relying on American businesses to supply its future non-fossil energy needs. India has substantial thorium reserves but little uranium. India also has outstanding technical capability in building reactors based on the thorium cycle, as good as any in the world. But the Indian political-bureaucratic establishment does not trust its own scientific talent. Western lobbyists, in the U.S. in particular, seem to have played on this Indian weakness to press a deal that is disadvantageous to India's long-term energy interests.