Word of the Day + Quiz | fructify

fructify • \ˈfrək-tə-ˌfī, ˈfru̇k-\ • verb

1. make productive or fruitful
2.become productive or fruitful
3. bear fruit


The word fructify has appeared in four New York Times articles in the past three years, including on Oct. 15, 2013, in the India Ink blog post “The Impasse Over Liability Clause in Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal” by M. V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju:

India and the United States have been engaged in intense discussions on civilian nuclear power for more than seven years. In 2008, in return for Washington’s help in persuading the Nuclear Suppliers Group to create a special exemption — which allowed its members to engage in nuclear trade with India, although it is not a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty — the Manmohan Singh government promised the United States that it would buy reactors with a minimum generating capacity of 10,000 megawatts from American companies. This commitment was made without any economic studies, or even a comparison of reactors available in the world market. Going by the current capital costs of nuclear reactors, this would have translated into $50 billion or more in reactor sales.

These deals have failed to fructify, even partially, because American companies have refused to accept the liability framework that the Indian government set in place in 2010 to deal with nuclear accidents. This law was passed at the urging of the United States government and nuclear industry. Nevertheless, American corporations are now unhappy because the law departs slightly from the framework that they laid out.


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