Nuclear_Deal

Nirupama Rao|nuclear deal on track WASHINGTON: Describing the India-US civil nuclear deal as "a major definitive milestone in Indo-US relationship", Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao has said the implementation of the landmark accord is "proceeding smoothly and satisfactorily". "We are in the process of operationalising the agreement through close coordination between our two governments," she said in an address on Monday at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, a Washington think-tank. The civil nuclear liability bill is ready for introduction, and in all likelihood it would be introduced after the parliament recess, Rao said in response to a question about the law which must be in place before US firms can supply nuclear equipment to India. "An important dimension of the landmark agreement on civil nuclear cooperation between our two countries is the substantive role that the United States nuclear power companies can play in the addition of more nuclear energy to India's energy mix," she said. Seeking US support for India's membership of the UN Security Council, she said: "Both our governments are agreed that the new global realities require that we revisit and reorganize existing governance models which were put in place over six decades ago." "We see our case for permanent membership of the Security Council as valid and legitimate and we seek the support of the United States in this endeavour," Rao said. Supporting President Barack Obama's vision of a nuclear weapon free world outlined last April, she noted "this has been consistently espoused by the Indian leadership for about six decades." In 2006, India presented specific proposals in the UN General Assembly as possible building blocks of a new global, verifiable nuclear disarmament framework, Rao said. "Presently, we wish to see the emergence of a consensus in the Conference on Disarmament on issues that the international community considers essential, including negotiations for a fissile material cutoff treaty". India was, committed to global efforts for preventing the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction, she said noting, "Our lists and guidelines are harmonised with the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime even though we are not as yet members of these regimes." "Driven by common concerns about the security of nuclear assets, particularly in the backdrop of the increasing threat of terrorist access to them, India and the US are partners in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism." Rao said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would participate in the Nuclear Security Summit to be hosted by Obama next month and "We believe that the Summit can be milestone in addressing the threat of nuclear terrorism." "We also hope that India and the US can find other opportunities to work for the safe, secure and proliferation resistant expansion of nuclear energy around the world," she said. Advantages and disadvantages of the indo-us nuclear deal hey guys! cud u let me know the advantages and disadvantages of indo-us nuclear deal' Advantage: 1.Better relationship between two countries 2. Milestone for Bush Adminstration 3. An achievement for Manmohan Singh 4. UPA got rid of Left parties 5. May be .. India could have surplus power in future. 6. Employment chances Dis advantages 1. US should not be dictating terms to India, if India agrees to this in future US may try to force another deal like this 2. probable foreign invasion into India's nuclear area 3. Unclear terms and conditions .., can be misused in future 4. Not much of benefits to India.. The main problem of this agreement are 1.Many portions are unclear 2.A big decision about future of India should have been consulted with all well wishers of India before a nod 3.it looks like more of Pro US for a common indian Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement The Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, known also as the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, refers to a bilateral accord on civil nuclear cooperation between the United States of America and the Republic of India. The framework for this agreement was a July 18, 2005 joint statement by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then U.S. President George W. Bush, under which India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and 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.[1] This U.S.-India deal took more than three years to come to fruition as it had to go through several complex stages, including amendment of U.S. domestic law, a civil-military nuclear Separation Plan in India, an India-IAEA safeguards (inspections) agreement and the 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. In its final shape, the deal places under permanent safeguards those nuclear facilities that India has identified as "civil" and permits broad civil nuclear cooperation, while excluding the transfer of "sensitive" equipment and technologies, including civil enrichment and reprocessing items even under IAEA safeguards. On August 18, 2008 the IAEA Board of Governors approved,[2] and on February 2, 2009, India signed an India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA.[3] Once India brings this agreement into force, inspections will begin in a phased manner on the 35 civilian nuclear installations India has identified in its Separation Plan.[4] The nuclear deal was widely seen[by whom'] as a legacy-building effort by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh.[citation needed] But while the deal had to pass muster with the U.S. Congress twice (once when the Hyde Act was passed in late 2006 to amend U.S. domestic law and then when the final deal-related package was approved in October 2008), Singh blocked the Indian Parliament from scrutinizing the deal. The deal proved very contentious in India and threatened at one time to topple Singh's government, which survived a confidence vote in Parliament in July 2008 by roping in a regional party as a coalition partner in place of the leftist bloc that had bolted. On August 1, 2008, the IAEA approved the safeguards agreement with India,[5] after which the United States approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant a waiver to India to commence civilian nuclear trade.[6] The 45-nation NSG granted the waiver to India on September 6, 2008 allowing it to access civilian nuclear technology and fuel from other countries.[7] The implementation of this waiver makes 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.[8] The US House of Representatives passed the bill on 28 September 2008.[9] Two days later, India and France inked a similar nuclear pact making France the first country to have such an agreement with India.[10] On October 1, 2008 the US Senate also approved the civilian nuclear agreement allowing India to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the United States.[11][12] U.S. President, George W. Bush, signed the legislation on the Indo-US nuclear deal, approved by the U.S. Congress, into law, now called the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act, on October 8, 2008.[13] The agreement was signed by Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his counterpart Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on 10 October.[14][15] The truth behind the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal In opening the door to nuclear commerce with India, Washington has confirmed how much an alliance with New Delhi is worth to it. But is anybody on the Indian side doing the math' IN THE fullness of time, last week's nuclear agreement between India and the United States will be seen as one of those decisive moments in international politics when two powers who have been courting each other for some time decide finally to cross the point of no return. The U.S. and India have `come out', so to speak, and the world will never be the same again. Every world order needs rules in order to sustain itself but sometimes the rules can become a hindrance to the hegemonic strength of the power that underpins that order. Following India's nuclear tests in 1998, the U.S. had two options: continuing to believe the Indian nuclear genie could be put back, or harnessing India's evident strategic weight for its own geopolitical aims before that power grows too immense or is harnessed by others like Europe or China. The U.S. has chosen the latter option, and the joint statement released by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18 is the most dramatic textual manifestation of what Washington is attempting to do. India too, had a choice. It could use its nuclear weapons status as a lever to push for a multipolar world system as well as for global restraints on the development of weapons of mass destruction. Or it could use its status as an instrument to help perpetuate an order based on the production of insecurity and violence in which it eventually hoped to be accommodated as a junior partner. The erstwhile Vajpayee Government was never interested in the former option and longed desperately for the latter. The fact that Dr. Singh has managed this is the real source of the BJP's bitterness, not the fact that India's nuclear weapons capability is to be capped (which it is not). Those in India who marvel at how Mr. Bush could blithely walk away from 40 years of non-proliferation policy do not understand the tectonic shift that is taking place in the bilateral relationship as a result of increasing fears in U.S. business and strategic circles about China. Giving India anything less, or insisting that it cap or scrap its nuclear weapons, is seen by Washington's neo-conservatives as tantamount to strengthening China in the emerging balance of power in Asia. "By integrating India into the non-proliferation order at the cost of capping the size of its eventual nuclear deterrent," Ashley Tellis argued in a recent monograph, "[the U.S. would] threaten to place New Delhi at a severe disadvantage vis-à-vis Beijing, a situation that could not only undermine Indian security but also U.S. interests in Asia in the face of the prospective rise of Chinese power over the long term" (India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005). This, then, is the real value of the deal in American eyes and the Indian public should be aware of it. Predictably, critics in the U.S. have raised objections of one type or another. The non-proliferation lobby argues that President Bush's decision to sell nuclear technology and equipment to India will encourage other countries to go down the nuclear path. Not so say the advocates. Mr. Tellis — a former RAND Corporation analyst who served as an advisor to Robert Blackwill when he was U.S. Ambassador to India — is most forthright. He acknowledges the contradiction between the two goals of U.S. foreign policy — building India up as a counter to China and upholding the non-proliferation regime — but says the circle can be squared. His solution: don't jettison the regime "but, rather, selectively [apply] it in practice." In other words, different countries should be treated differently "based on their friendship and value to the U.S." With one stroke of the Presidential pen, India has become something more than a `major non-Nato ally' of the U.S. It has joined the Free World. It has gone from being a victim of nuclear discrimination to a beneficiary. India is not alone. Israel is already there to give it company. From a strategic perspective, one of the most puzzling aspects of the joint statement was the inclusion of a reiteration by India of its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing without the U.S. making an explicit reciprocal commitment to abide by its own 1992 moratorium. At stake is not a formal question of protocol but the very real danger that the U.S. might go down the path of testing at some point in the future. The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review was quite explicit on this point: "The United States has not conducted nuclear tests since 1992 and supports the continued observance of the testing moratorium. While the U.S. is making every effort to maintain the stockpile without additional nuclear testing, this may not be possible for the indefinite future." Stockpile safety is, of course, a ruse, given the fact that the U.S. is running active research programmes on a new generation of smaller and `smarter' nuclear weapons like `mini-nukes' and deep earth penetrators. Earlier this month, in fact, the U.S. Senate voted to keep alive the bunker-buster programme in the face of demands that it be scrapped. The development of deadly new nuclear weapons by the U.S. should be a matter of great concern to India for their eventual deployment will degrade the security environment in the world and Asia. The same is true of the U.S. missile defence programme, which India, regrettably, will continue to remain engaged with. The Pentagon's goal in developing a missile shield is 'full-spectrum dominance,' including the weaponisation of space. Preventing this has been a major goal of most countries at the Conference on Disarmament (CD), with China insisting that a treaty on the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) is as important as the fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) , which would place no effective constraint on the U.S. or Russian arsenal because of their huge stockpiles of fissile material. In agreeing to "work with the U.S." on an FMCT, India has accorded primacy to this treaty over PAROS and other long-standing Indian goals at the CD such as negative security assurances and comprehensive disarmament where the U.S. is dragging its feet. Hidden costs Of all the misgivings present in the public mind, it is the fear of a quid pro quo on some other front that the Prime Minister most needs to dispel. Mr. Tellis, whose report on India-U.S. relations formed a valuable input to the Bush administration's thinking, argued, inter alia, that allowing India access to U.S. nuclear material and equipment would make New Delhi more likely to help further American strategic goals in the region. "[It] would buttress [India's] potential utility as a hedge against a rising China, encourage it to pursue economic and strategic policies aligned with U.S. interests, and shape its choices in regard to global energy stability... " When it comes to "global energy stability" are India's interests in alignment with those of the U.S.' Clearly not. It is not a coincidence that the two "American concerns" a Wall Street Journal editorial demanded the Prime Minister address during his visit were India's relations with Myanmar and Iran. Both these countries have gas reserves that are vital for our energy security. Addressing the Africa-Asia summit in Jakarta in April this year, the Prime Minister had said : "While our continents include both major producers and consumers of energy, the framework within which we produce and consume energy is determined elsewhere. We must end this anomaly." And yet, in baldly stating that no international bank would want to underwrite the Iran gas pipeline, Dr. Singh would appear to have strengthened the very outside "framework" he once spoke against. In addition to facing pressure on Iran, India is likely to be asked to let its Navy operate more frequently alongside the U.S. Navy in Asia. The purpose of these joint operations is essentially military and the U.S. wants India to also sign up for the Proliferation Security Initiative. Mr. Tellis's report had predicted that a nuclear deal would "increase [India's] enthusiasm for taking part in counter-proliferation activity in the Indian Ocean." The joint statement makes no direct mention of such cooperation though it speaks of a new "U.S.-India Disaster Relief Initiative that builds on the experience of the Tsunami core group." The real purpose of this initiative is revealed by the apparently inappropriate sub-heading under which it finds mention: `For Non-Proliferation and Security.' All told, the deal signed in Washington raises a number of questions about the Manmohan Singh Government's policies in the field of nuclear energy, disarmament, `promotion of democracy,' energy security and strategic stability in Asia. No doubt the Government has answers. Spinning euphoric reports in the mass media is not the way of providing them. The Government owes it to the people to provide a detailed account of its nuclear policy in the form of a White Paper. Let the details of the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh negotiations be made public. Let the Government place on record its estimate of how much the proposed separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities will cost and what the benefits of last week's agreement will be. And let it say openly that nuclear deal or not, India will continue to work for global disarmament and has no desire to play the role of a `hedge', fence or `tether' in the U.S. plan to contain China. | | | Council on Foreign Relations * The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal Authors: | Jayshree Bajoria, Staff WriterEsther Pan | * Updated: November 20, 2009 * Introduction * What are the terms of the deal' * What kind of technology would India receive in return' * What do proponents say about the deal' * What are the objections to the agreement' * Who needs to approve the agreement' * What effect will the U.S.-India deal have on the NPT' * What role does China play in the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal' * What effect will the deal have on U.S. and Indian relations with Pakistan' * What’s the history of India’s nuclear program' Introduction The U.S. Congress on October 1, 2008, gave final approval to an agreement facilitating nuclear cooperation between the United States and India. The deal is seen as a watershed in U.S.-India relations and introduces a new aspect to international nonproliferation efforts. First introduced in the joint statement released by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18, 2005, the deal lifts a three-decade U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India. It provides U.S. assistance to India's civilian nuclear energy program, and expands U.S.-India cooperation in energy and satellite technology. But critics in the United States say the deal fundamentally reverses half a century of U.S. nonproliferation efforts, undermines attempts to prevent states like Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, and potentially contributes to a nuclear arms race in Asia. "It's an unprecedented deal for India," says Charles D. Ferguson, science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you look at the three countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)-Israel, India, and Pakistan-this stands to be a unique deal." A number of issues must be resolved before U.S. companies can start nuclear trade with India. The Indian parliament has yet to approve legislation granting civil liability protection to U.S. energy companies. India would also like the United States to relax some of its restrictions on technology transfer to India. But India appears intent to move ahead: In July 2009, New Delhi designated two sites for U.S. companies to build nuclear reactors in India. What are the terms of the deal' The details of the deal include the following: * India agrees to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog group, access to its civilian nuclear program. By March 2006, India promised to place fourteen of its twenty-two power reactors under IAEA safeguards permanently. Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says these will include domestically built plants, which India has not been willing to safeguard before now. India has promised that all future civilian thermal and breeder reactors shall be placed under IAEA safeguards permanently. However, the Indian prime minister says New Delhi "retains the sole right to determine such reactors as civilian." According to him: "This means that India will not be constrained in any way in building future nuclear facilities, whether civilian or military, as per our national requirements." Military facilities-and stockpiles of nuclear fuel that India has produced up to now-will be exempt from inspections or safeguards. * India commits to signing an Additional Protocol (PDF)-which allows more intrusive IAEA inspections-of its civilian facilities. * India agrees to continue its moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. * India commits to strengthening the security of its nuclear arsenals. * India works toward negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) with the United States banning the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.India agrees to prevent the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that don't possess them and to support international nonproliferation efforts. * U.S. companies will be allowed to build nuclear reactors in India and provide nuclear fuel for its civilian energy program. (An approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group lifting the ban on India has also cleared the way for other countries to make nuclear fuel and technology sales to India.) What kind of technology would India receive in return' India would be eligible to buy U.S. dual-use nuclear technology, including materials and equipment that could be used to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, potentially creating the material for nuclear bombs. It would also receive imported fuel for its nuclear reactors. What do proponents say about the deal' Proponents of the agreement argue it will bring India closer to the United States at a time when the two countries are forging a strategic relationship to pursue common interests in fighting terrorism, spreading democracy, and preventing the domination of Asia by a single power. Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace-who was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India as senior adviser to the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs-said in congressional testimony in 2005 that the deal recognizes this growing relationship by engaging India, which has proven it is not a nuclear proliferation risk. Other experts say the deal lays out the requirements for India to be recognized as a responsible steward of nuclear power. "This is part of a process of making India a more durable and reliable nuclear partner," Schaffer says. Other experts say the deal: * Would encourage India to accept international safeguards on facilities it has not allowed to be inspected before. This is a major step, experts say, because the existing nonproliferation regime has failed either to force India to give up its nuclear weapons or make it accept international inspections and restrictions on its nuclear facilities. "President Bush's bilateral deal correctly recognizes that it is far better for the nonproliferation community if India works with it rather than against it," writes Seema Gahlaut of the University of Georgia's Center for International Trade and Security in a CSIS policy brief. IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei has strongly endorsed the deal, calling it a pragmatic way to bring India into the nonproliferation community. * Recognizes India's history of imposing voluntary safeguards on its nuclear program. Proponents of the deal say India has an excellent record of setting credible safeguards on its nuclear program for the last thirty years. After the safeguards on the U.S.-supplied Tarapur nuclear facility expired in 1993, for example, India voluntarily established a new agreement with the IAEA to continue the restrictions. * Recognizes that India has a good record on proliferation. Although it is not a signatory to the NPT, India has maintained strict controls on its nuclear technology and has not shared it with any other country. Proponents of the deal say this restraint shows that India, unlike its nuclear neighbor Pakistan, is committed to responsible nuclear stewardship and fighting proliferation. In May 2005 India passed a law, the WMD Act, which criminalizes the trade and brokering of sensitive technology. * Rewards India's decision to adopt similar nuclear export standards as those imposed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India has thus far chosen to abide by the strict export controls on nuclear technology set by the NSG, a group of forty-five nuclear-supplier states that coordinates controls of nuclear exports to non-nuclear-weapon states. Experts say if India chose to lift these voluntary restrictions, it could easily sell its technology to far less trustworthy countries around the world. The U.S. deal would reward the Indian government for its voluntary controls and give New Delhi incentive to continue them, against the demands of Indian hardliners who question what India gets out of placing such limits on itself. What are the objections to the agreement' Critics call the terms of the agreement overly beneficial for India and lacking sufficient safeguards to prevent New Delhi from continuing to produce nuclear weapons. "We are going to be sending, or allowing others to send, fresh fuel to India-including yellowcake and lightly enriched uraniumt-that will free up Indian domestic sources of fuel to be solely dedicated to making many more bombs than they would otherwise have been able to make," says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving awareness of proliferation issues. While India has pledged that any U.S. assistance to its civilian nuclear energy program will not benefit its nuclear weapons program, experts say India could use the imported nuclear fuel to feed its civilian energy program while diverting its own nuclear fuel to weapons production. New Delhi has done similar things in the past; India claimed it was using nuclear technology for civilian purposes right up until its first nuclear weapons test in 1974. A Congressional Research Service report (PDF) on the agreement states, "There are no measures in this global partnership to restrain India's nuclear weapons program." Other objections raised by experts include: * The safeguards apply only to facilities and material manufactured by India beginning when the agreement was reached. It doesn't cover the fissile material produced by India over the last several decades of nuclear activity. The CRS report says, "A significant question is how India, in the absence of full-scope safeguards, can provide adequate confidence that U.S. peaceful nuclear technology will not be diverted to nuclear weapons purposes." * The deal does not require India to cap or limit its fissile material production. This comes at a time when nearly all the major nuclear powers-including the United States, France, Britain, and Russia-are moving to limit their production. * The deal does not require India to restrict the number of nuclear weapons it plans to produce. * There are more cost-efficient ways to improve India's energy and technology sectors. These could include making India's existing electricity grid more efficient, restructuring the country's coal industry, and expanding the use of renewable energy sources, Sokolski said in congressional testimony in 2005. All these steps would involve much less dangerous transfers of technology that would not be dual-use, and therefore not convertible to nuclear weapons production. * The agreement takes unnecessary risks without adequate preparation or expert review. The agreement "appears to have been formulated without a comprehensive high-level review of its potential impact on nonproliferation, the significant engagement of many of the government's most senior nonproliferation experts, or a clear plan for achieving its implementation," wrote William C. Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in Nonproliferation Review in August 2005. "Indeed, it bears all the signs of a top-down administrative directive specifically designed to circumvent the interagency review process and to minimize input from any remnants of the traditional 'nonproliferation lobby.'" Who needs to approve the agreement' The final terms of the nuclear deal were approved by the following bodies before they could be implemented: * IAEA. India signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA under which all nuclear material and equipment transferred to it by the United States as a part of this deal shall be subject to safeguards. In August 2008, the IAEA's Board of Governors approved an India-specific safeguards agreement (PDF). The IAEA said it will begin to implement the new agreement in 2009, with the aim of bringing fourteen Indian reactors under agency safeguards by 2014. The IAEA currently applies safeguards to six of these fourteen nuclear reactors under previous agreements. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says the IAEA and India are in dialogue concerning an additional protocol to the draft safeguards agreement. * India's Parliament. While the deal does not require a formal vote by the parliament, the coalition government has faced a confidence vote over it. Many parliamentarians oppose the deal, arguing it will limit India's sovereignty and hurt its security. Some Indian nuclear experts are protesting what they see as excessive U.S. participation in deciding which of India's nuclear facilities to define as civilian, and open to international inspections under the plan. * The Nuclear Suppliers Group. In September 2008, after much lobbying by the Bush administration, the group approved the India-specific exemption. * Congress. In October 2008, the U.S. Congress gave final approval to the bill. Under the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which regulates the trade of nuclear material, congressional approval was needed to pass the exemptions to U.S. laws required for the nuclear deal to be implemented. Some members of Congress were resistant, and called for India to commit to strict limits on its nuclear weapons program before the deal went through. There is a potential area of dispute with India over the terms for suspending the agreement. Before clearing the bill, the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment that would require U.S. nuclear supplies to be cut off if India tests nuclear weapons. The deal does not explicitly impose that condition, though it is part of a 2006 law known as the Hyde Act, which gave the deal preliminary approval. What effect will the U.S.-India deal have on the NPT' It could gut the agreement, some experts say. Article I of the treaty says nations that possess nuclear weapons agree not to help states that do not possess weapons to acquire them. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, says without additional measures to ensure a real barrier exists between India's military and civilian nuclear programs, the agreement "could pose serious risks to the security of the United States" by potentially allowing Indian companies to proliferate banned nuclear technology around the world. In addition, it could lead other suppliers-including Russia and China-to bend the international rules so they can sell their own nuclear technology to other countries, some of them hostile to the United States. On the other hand, experts like Gahlaut argue the NPT was already failing in its mission to prevent proliferation. She says many countries-including North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq-have cheated while being signatories of the NPT. What role does China play in the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal' It is a motivating factor in the deal, some experts say. China's rise in the region is prompting the United States to seek a strategic relationship with India. "The United States is trying to cement its relationship with the world's largest democracy in order to counterbalance China," CFR's Ferguson says. The Bush administration is "hoping that latching onto India as the rising star of Asia could help them handle China," Sokolski says. Some experts say the growing economic relationship between China and India is so critical to New Delhi that its interests in China cannot be threatened or replaced by any agreement with the United States. Other experts worry U.S. nuclear aid to India could foster a dangerous nuclear rivalry between India and China. Though India has a strong interest in building economic relations with China, New Delhi is still wary of China's military rise in the region. What effect will the deal have on U.S. and Indian relations with Pakistan' Pakistan has not received a similar deal on nuclear energy from Washington. Some experts say this apparent U.S. favoritism toward India could increase the nuclear rivalry between the intensely competitive nations, and potentially raise tensions in the already dangerous region. "My impression is that [the Pakistanis] are worried this will feed the Indian nuclear weapons program and therefore weaken deterrence," Blackwill said. Other experts say the two countries, both admittedly now nuclear, could be forced to deal more cautiously with each other. Pakistan is already a proliferation risk: Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan's illicit nuclear network, revealed in 2004, shocked the world with its brazen trade of nuclear technology. Some experts worry the U.S.-India deal could prompt Pakistan to go elsewhere, for instance to China, for similar terms. What’s the history of India’s nuclear program' In the 1950s, the United States helped India develop nuclear energy under the Atoms for Peace program. The United States built a nuclear reactor for India, provided nuclear fuel for a time, and allowed Indian scientists study at U.S. nuclear laboratories. In 1968, India refused to sign the NPT, claiming it was biased. In 1974, India tested its first nuclear bomb, showing it could develop nuclear weapons with technology transferred for peaceful purposes. As a result, the United States isolated India for twenty-five years, refusing nuclear cooperation and trying to convince other countries to do the same. But since 2000, the United States has moved to build a "strategic partnership" with India, increasing cooperation in fields including spaceflight, satellite technology, and missile defense.