Date:07/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/07/stories/2008090756481000.htm

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De facto nuclear power status for India: Congress

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday hailed the NSG decision to provide a waiver to India stating that it is a unique development that confers de facto nuclear power status to the country.

Terming it as the “greatest event in the 20th-21st century,” party chief spokesperson M. Veerappa Moily said countries that were hostile to India after New Delhi conducted nuclear tests and the P-5 (permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council) had agreed to the waiver. “We have become P-6. It is a historical event,” he said.

Mr. Moily said all the lobbies that worked against India had failed and said this was the best deal done ever by any country. He praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the architect behind this agreement. Party president Sonia Gandhi gave steadfast support to the deal, he said.

Senior leader and Union Minister Kapil Sibal said the waiver showed India’s time had come. He said the development must also be seen as a milestone for the advent of global solution for challenges the world faced in the form of energy security and global warming.

Party spokesperson Manish Tiwari said 34 years after India conducted nuclear tests that it entered the nuclear club safeguarding its strategic autonomy.

He said the deal would take the country forward and meet its growing requirements of energy, something that every person in every village related to.