A similar civil liability bill in the US Senate could have been thrown out. The US government appears confident that it can buy this Bill as well as our parliamentarians who remain imprisoned by party whips.

The proposed Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill, which was to be introduced in the current Parliament session, is an exercise to provide State subsidy to foreign-nuclear reactor builders from the onus of the financial consequences of nuclear disasters, accidents and incidents by shifting the onus for accident liability from the foreign builders to the Indian State and citizens.

In case of an accident due to the equipment supplied or any other external reason (design, construction), the damages would have to be paid only by the operator of the facility and not the supplier of the equipment (nuclear reactors) or the builder of the facility.

In such a scenario, the foreign companies supplying the reactors will make profits and the state-run and public-funded NPCIL would be liable to pay the compensation in case of an accident. So, while the Indian people would get paid with their own money in case of an accident, foreign companies would make a killing.

The bogey of increasing international pressure is being crafted from within to target Indian public opinion at a time when dialogue with separatists is going on and Pakistan is unraveling from within.

A section from within the government and the political establishment wants to present a compromise in Jammu and Kashmir as a deliverance to the nation from a perpetual confrontation, even if it means abandoning its frontiers, its people in the state, its civilisational responsibility, central features of its eco-heritage, secularism and everything which India stands for.