SP to bailout Congress on nuke deal

Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and party general secretary Amar Singh met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to discuss the Indo-US nuclear deal. It was not clear as to what transpired during the meeting, but one thing was certain that former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam's endorsement of the nuke deal could well prove to be a critical factor in determining which way the pendulum swings. Yadav met Kalam to seek his views on the Indo-US nuke deal. The former President is learnt to have told the SP chief that the deal is in the interest of the country.

The two SP leaders were also likely to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi and may announce their stand on the nuke deal only after getting the backing of their fellow UNPA partners, who are against any kind of alliance with the Congress. The Congress party is cozying up to the SP as the Left parties have threatened to withdraw their support if the Government goes ahead with talks with the IAEA on India-centric safeguards. The SP has 39 seats in the Lok Sabha while the Left has 59 members.

Meanwhile, the Left front held a meeting to finalise their gameplan once the Government announces its decision to take the next step on the nuke deal. CPM boos Prakash Karat announced that the communist parties will launch a national campaign from July 14, to explain to the people their opposition to the India-US civil nuclear deal. Karat also said that the Left parties have written a letter to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, seeking confirmation on w

Sharekhan Investor's Eye - Nov 17

India-USA nuclear deal

Key points

• On November 17, 2006 the US Senate passed the bill to implement civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India. During July 2005, India and the USA had reached an agreement on the separation of civil and military nuclear plants and technology transfer for civil nuclear plants.
• The Indo-US nuke deal brings a reliable source of nuclear technology that can be exploited to set up nuclear power plants in India. This in turn could possibly go a long way in quenching India’s current and projected thirst for power. Needless to say that the companies like BHEL, Larsen & Toubro, KSB Pumps and Honeywell Automation that provide products and services for nuclear power plants would be the primary beneficiaries in this scenario.
• India’s power generation today is approximately 15% below the actual consumption. As per the energy and resources institute (TERI) the projected economic growth of 7-8% over the next 20 years will quadruple India’s energy needs.
• Coal, the main source of India’s energy needs today, is peaking its exploitation and the gas supply from Iran via a pipeline is unlikely to materialise due to the US opposition.
• Hence if India’s power generation has to keep pace with the burgeoning economy, nuclear power has to provide a significant component of it, as opposed to its current contribution of 3%. A very plausible scenario to look at is the building of nuclear power plants with the help of the USA.

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Real estate

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In this report, we have also ranked some of the listed companies with reasonably large land banks based on quantitative as well as qualitative parameters. In terms of the overall ranking (on a scale of 1 to 10), Unitech (9) leads the pack followed by Ansal Properties & Infrastructure (8.3) and Anant Raj Industries (8). On the other hand, Prajay Engineers (4.5) and Arihant Foundation (5.5) trail at the lower end of the overall ranking.

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