India's Energy Security: Role of Nuclear Power

Energy is essential for the survival and growth of modern human civilization. A reasonably good correlation exists between the per capita energy consumption and quality of life, as indicated by the UN Human Development Index. This correlation is quite strong in the case of developing countries like India where the energy demand is largely unfulfilled.1 The United Nations uses three main parameters -- per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product), life expectancy and adult literacy – to calculate Human Development Index(HDI) but developing country like India needs two parameters –per capita electricity consumption and female literacy -- to obtain HDI value.2 In the report titled ‘The Energy Security Paradigm’, the World Economic Forum says that energy security is an umbrella term that covers many concerns linking energy, economic growth and political power.3 Energy underpins prosperity and security of a country. Also, it all depends on quantity and quality of natural resources the country is endowed with. But the hard fact is that there is uneven distribution of energy resources in the world. This has strategic implications over states which are vulnerable to energy resources.