Question : AGREEMENT WITH US RESEARCH FACILITY

(a) whether the Government have concluded along term research agreement with a US research facility called Brookhaven laboratories ;

(b) if so, the details thereof ;

(c) whether the agreement lays down special on developing all round safety at our nuclear plants ;

(d) if so, the details thereof :

(e) whether as per the agreement any exchangeof scientists between the research institutions of the two countries will be undertaken;

(f) if so, the details thereof ; and

(g) the benefits to accrue to the country as aresult of the agreement?

THE MINISTER OF STATE OF THE MINISTRY OF SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES, MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES AND PENSIONS, MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE DEPARTMENTS OF ATOMIC ENERGY AND SPACE (SHRIMATI VASUNDHARA RAJE)

(a) to (g) A statementis laid on the Table of the House.

Statement

(a) Yes, Sir.

(b) These agreements are essentially for research Fundamental Science. Brookhaven National Laboratory in USA has set up a major basic research facility called Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This is primarily meantfor fundamental research to study what happens when two heavy nuclei (for example, two gold nuclei) collide with each other at extremely high energies (in case of gold,each nucleus has about 40 TeV [Tera electron Volt] energy)and to find out if a new phase of nuclear matter, called`quark-gluon plasma` (QGP), gas created and to look for signatures of QGP. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)has been associated with this programme since 1994 underan Inter-Laboratory Agreement with the Brookhaven NationalLaboratory (BNL).Under another Memorandum of Understanding, an Indian team coordinated by Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata will, in collaboration with the Solenoidal Tracker (STAR) team, carry out experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

(c) No, Sir.

(d) Not applicable.

(e) Yes, Sir.

(f) The mutual exchange of scientific visits take place as and when felt useful and necessary.

(g) The participation In these International collaboration programmes enables the Indlan scientists touse the front line accelerator facilities and advanced detectorsystems set up at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.