INDO US nuke deal FINALY PASSED....

House of Representatives passes Indo-US nuke deal   Sunday, September 28, 2008, (Washington) The US House of Representatives has passed the Indo-US nuclear deal. The bill got the approval of 298 representatives, just eight more than the two-thirds majority, while 117 voted against it.

There were 120 Democrats who voted for the nuclear deal bill while 107 Democrats voted against it. As per the Republicans, 178 voted in favour of the bill, and 10 voted against it.

The US House of Representatives had on Friday debated the Indo-US nuclear deal but the vote was postponed until Saturday.

The debate lasted 40 minutes in the 435-member US Congress. The support for nuclear deal House was bipartisan. Nuclear deal critic Howard Berman backed 123 agreement in the House.

Reacting to the development, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan said, "Hope the bill gets cleared in Senate this session itself."

The bill has been passed before the departure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from US for France.

Sources have said that the American Chambers of Commerce made individual appeals through letters to Congressmen, asking them to support the deal. As per the sources, five major companies including GE issued appeals.

There were at least three versions of the bill until both the Senate and the House agreed on an identical bill.

The bill has now gone to the US Senate for approval, where the voting is expected to be a formality. However, the Senate vote will in most probability happen only next week. In order to avoid hurdles in the process, there is a possibility the nuclear deal will be tagged on to other legislation that goes to a vote in the Senate.

However, sources had told NDTV that the deal could be signed in India on October 3. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to visit India at that time.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier said that nuclear deal would help widen our clean energy options.