India-US civil Nuclear Deal and other related issues

1      Chronological events:

Ø 1968: India refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the grounds that it is discriminatory.

Ø May 18, 1974: India conducts its first nuclear test.

Ø March 10, 1978: US President Jimmy Carter signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, following which US ceases exporting nuclear assistance to India.

Ø May 11-13, 1998: India tests five underground nuclear tests.

Ø July 18, 2005: US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first announce their intention to enter into a nuclear agreement in Washington.

2      India-US Nuclear Deal (Also called 123 agreement)

Ø India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and to place all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and, in exchange, the United States agreed to work toward full civil nuclear cooperation with India.

Ø US- Amended its domestic law, Atomic Energy Act of 1954, grant of an exemption for India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an export-control cartel that had been formed mainly in response to India's first nuclear test in 1974

Ø India prepared separation plan for Civil Military Nuclear Separation, India-IAEA safeguards (inspections) agreement and the

Ø The implementation of this waiver made India the only known country with nuclear weapons which is not a party to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but is still allowed to carry out nuclear commerce with the rest of the world

3      Why India does not sign NPT:

Though neither India, Israel, nor Pakistan have signed the NPT, India argues that instead of addressing the central objective of universal and comprehensive non-proliferation, the treaty creates a club of "nuclear haves" and a larger group of "nuclear have-nots" by restricting the legal possession of nuclear weapons to those states that tested them before 1967, who alone are free to possess and multiply their nuclear stockpiles. India insists on a comprehensive action plan for a nuclear-free world within a specific time-frame and has also adopted a voluntary "no first use policy".

4      India’s Quest to International Groups:

The Indian quest for membership to the four non-proliferation regimes - NSG, Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group - took on a serious tone after the US President Barack Obama formally committed US support to helping India get into these regimes, during his visit to India in November, 2010.

However, the NSG itself took a massive beating when China announced that it would transfer two more nuclear reactors - Chashma III and IV - to Pakistan, without bothering to go to the NSG for a waiver, like the US and India did for their nuclear deal in 2008.

The Chinese transfer went through the NSG, despite some dissenting voices, and China actually got away with its "explanation" that these reactors had been "grandfathered", in other words, signed before China acceded to the NSG.

4.1   Missile Technology Control Regime:

The Missile Technology Control Regime is an informal and voluntary association of countries which share the goals of non-proliferation of unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, and which seek to coordinate national export licensing efforts aimed at preventing their proliferation. The MTCR was originally established in 1987 by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Since that time, the number of MTCR partners has increased to a total of thirty-four countries, all of which have equal standing within the Regime.

4.2   The Wassenaar Arrangement:

The Wassenaar Arrangement (full name: The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies) is a multilateral export control regime(MECR) with 41 participating states including many former COMECON (Warsaw Pact) countries.

It is the successor to the Cold war-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), and was established on July 12, 1996, in the Dutch town of Wassenaar, near The Hague. The Wassenaar Arrangement is considerably less strict than COCOM, focusing primarily on the transparency of national export control regimes and not granting veto power to individual members over organizational decisions.