Opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation with India and related developments

The Joint Statement issued by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and the President George W. Bush of the United States in July 2005 paved the way for momentous changes leading to the opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation with India. As a follow up, India prepared a Separation Plan to offer several of its indigenously built nuclear reactors and fuel cycle facilities under safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and negotiated an India-Specific Safeguards Agreement. India also launched an outreach with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the NSG relaxed its guidelines in September 2008 to facilitate international civil nuclear trade with India. All this resulted in India signing Nuclear Cooperation Agreements (NCA) with several countries and has enabled India to import uranium from the international market. India has placed orders with Russia for setting up of additional reactors in technical cooperation and is in negotiation with companies in France and the USA for similar orders. In parallel, India was admitted in December 2005 to the ITER venture as a full partner. The global scientific community now recognizes India as an important stakeholder in mega science projects and there has been a deluge of requests for India's participation. The paper focuses on gains for India arising from developments subsequent to the Joint Statement.