Too many cooks hobble Indo-US nuclear treaty

As the Indo-US nuclear deal, which looked like a sure thing just a few months ago, flounders on the negotiating table, some of the blame can be laid at the door of the sheer number of negotiators from the Indian side.

When the Hyde Act was cleared by the US Congress and Senate last winter, the then foreign secretary Shyam Saran was asked to be the Prime Minister's special envoy on the deal.

He was in-charge of negotiating with the US administration and also help in negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

What has happened is of course a different matter altogether. "It is foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who is chiefly negotiating with the US administration, it is Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who will negotiate with the IAEA, and India's ambassador to Singapore Jaishankar, a disarmament expert who made a presentation to the NSG recently," said a government source.

"Apart from these three, India's ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen, says that he also has a role to play in this deal, and the overall hawk eye of the National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan, can be taken as a given as well," said the source.

According to sources, Saran, though operating out of an office in the PMO, finds it difficult to "even get people to pick up the phone."

"It is a said fact that Saran is a retired bureaucrat and in a deal of this kind, the establishment will zealously guard its territory," said the source.

All this only seems to have confused an already messed up situation. The US administration is pushing for an early end to negotiations as the US enters the madness of its presidential elections.

"The question of whether the deal will go through is very much in the air," said the source.