US House to vote on nuclear deal

The United States House of Representatives is due to vote on a landmark nuclear deal to share civilian nuclear technology with India.
The deal offers US nuclear technology to India in exchange for inspectors' access to Indian civilian reactors.
The accord has been hailed as historic by some, but critics say it will damage non-proliferation efforts.
US Senate and House of Representatives committees have already backed the controversial plan.
The BBC's Shahzeb Jillani in Washington says the landmark deal allowing the US to sell civilian nuclear technology to India - for the first time in three decades - is expected to be ratified by the US Congress.
US Vice President Dick Cheney has said the deal was "one of the most important strategic foreign policy initiatives of President Bush's second term".
The House of Representatives vote is part of an elaborate legislative process to clear the deal, which also has to be cleared by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, a group of nations that exports nuclear materials, reports say.
Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives endorsed the legislation.
Domestic opposition
"[The deal] could be the most important step made in cementing a critical partnership between India and the United States," Democrat Joseph Crowley was quoted saying by Reuters news agency.
NUCLEAR POWER IN INDIA
India has 14 reactors in commercial operation and nine under construction
Nuclear power supplies about 3% of India's electricity
By 2050, nuclear power is expected to provide 25% of the country's electricity
India has limited coal and uranium reserves
Its huge thorium reserves - about 25% of the world's total - are expected to fuel its nuclear power programme long-term
Source: Uranium Information Center
Global nuclear powers
The proposed agreement reverses US policy to restrict nuclear co-operation with Delhi because it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has twice tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998.
Mr Bush finalised the agreement during a landmark trip to India in March.
Under the deal, energy-hungry India will get access to US civil nuclear technology and fuel, in return for opening its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection.
But its nuclear weapons sites will remain off-limits.
Critics of the deal say it could boost India's nuclear arsenal and sends the wrong message to countries like Iran, whose nuclear ambitions Washington opposes.
"By shipping India fuel for its civilian reactors, this legislation potentially frees up their [India's] entire supply of domestic uranium for use in weapons," House Democrat Ed Markey was quoted telling reporters by the AFP news agency.
India's nuclear-armed neighbour Pakistan has asked the US to address what it calls its legitimate needs in the civilian use of nuclear power.
Correspondents say that that there are fears that the deal may spark off an arms race in South Asia with recent unconfirmed reports that Pakistan is a building new nuclear reactor.

The deal was signed during President Bush's visit to India
India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has termed the deal as "unacceptable".
It said that it would make India "perpetually dependent" on the US for all initiatives in the application of nuclear energy.
India's Communists, who are allies of the ruling Congress-party led federal government, have also expressed their reservations about the deal.
India has made clear that the final agreement must not bind it to supporting the US's Iran policy and does not prevent it from developing its own fissile material.