NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate a three-day International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy-2009 on Sept. 29 at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi that will chart out the road map for development of nuclear energy and its peaceful applications. This conference aims at discussing options that would contribute to developing of such a future road map.
The proposed conference assumes significance in the backdrop of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. US President Barack Obama had also recently assured Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Pittsburgh that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Resolution of the UN Security Council will not affect
India and that the US Administration was committed to carrying out all the obligations under the civil nuclear agreements toward India.
The Indian conference marks the birth centenary Indian atomic energy program founder Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who also had the distinction of being president of the first international conference on this subject held in Geneva in 1955. The conference seeks to build on the progress made in the field of nuclear energy in the last five decades.
The conference is being organized by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), in association with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Indian Nuclear Society (INS), as part of the year-long program.
The inaugural session will be addressed by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, IAEA Director-General Mohammed Elbaradei and Indian Nuclear Society President P Rama Rao. Pranab Mukherjee will also release Bhabha Centenary Commemorative Coins on the occasion.
The scope of the conference will cover both power and non-power applications of nuclear energy. Several policy-makers and eminent nuclear scientists and technologists have agreed to participate in the conference and deliver lectures in the topical areas of the plenary sessions. These lectures will be complemented with the presentations by experts from some of the countries with emerging nuclear programs. The format of the conference program will comprise plenary sessions, side events, poster sessions and roundtable discussions. The participation of potential new-comers in this conference will help achieve collective growth of nuclear energy in the world. In the plenary sessions, topics that will be covered include: Nuclear Power — Challenges for Growth, Evolving Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Radiation for Human Welfare.
The side events will cover the following themes: exploration and mining of uranium, small & medium size reactors, accelerator-driven systems, waste management strategies, nuclear agriculture, recent developments in radiotherapy, materials for fusion technology and fast reactor fuel cycle. The poster sessions and roundtable discussions will also be held in the conference.
