After the agreed text of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Co-Operation Agreement was made public on August 1, 2007, an intense debate was unleashed in India. The Prime Minister of India had made five major statements on this subject in the Parliament during the past two years. The agreement itself took two years of intense negotiations between India and the US. Some of India’s best brains from the scientific and diplomatic community participated in the negotiations at various stages and their concerns were fully addressed to by the political leadership. People like National Security Adviser and Chairman of BARC, by giving extensive interviews to media prepared the nation to what they are negotiating with the US. All this can happen only in a democracy like India and the government of the day decided to be transparent. Even the critics of the agreement will not find as much of space in the media as they obtained in India. This is a welcome development and shows the maturity of Indian democracy. Whether the agreement will finally be signed or not is not clear as yet. But the vibrant Indian democracy had showed that it is not only capable of debating an issue and evolve a national consensus on vital issues which have a direct or indirect bearing on the nation in perpetuity.
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