Commentary: A nuclear-powered India would charge up global trade
By Andy Mukherjee Bloomberg News
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2006
Almost a tenth of India's economy was being murdered in the dark, strangled by power shortages. And then George W. Bush said, "Let there be light."
That, in a nutshell, is the thrust of a much-debated nuclear-energy agreement that the U.S. president pursued and concluded Thursday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in New Delhi.
The Indian Finance Ministry set up the plot in its annual economic assessment this week. In the year ending March 31,
goods and services worth $68 billion have not been produced because power has been unavailable. That is equivalent to 9.3 percent of India's gross domestic product. An acute power crisis is all too visible. Computer software companies in Bangalore keep enough generator fuel to last them a week, or longer, in case the overburdened power distribution network breaks down.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/02/bloomberg/sxmuk.phpH and R Block can't be too happy about this!