US supports India's entry into top N-club

US President Barack Obama took the entry of India into the nuclear club several steps further on the first day of his state visit. HT reports.

US President Barack Obama took the entry of India into the nuclear club several steps further on the first day of his state visit.

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He said the United States would "in principle" support India's entry into the world's most elite technology clubs — including the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

Obama, in effect, has taken the India-US civilian nuclear deal one step further and fulfilled a key Indian expectation regarding his visit.

The global non-proliferation regime is dominated by a set of technology groupings that seek to deny sensitive know-how related to nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as missiles, from the rest of the world. These include the Wassenaar Convention, the Missile Technology Control Review, the Australia Group as well as the NSG.

In a related move, Obama also announced the lifting of high-technology sanctions against ISRO, DRDO and other Indian institutions.

The removal of the Indian Space Research Organisation, Defence Research and Development Organisation and their subsidiaries as well as state-owned defence firm Bharat Dynamics from the "entities list" opens the door for India-US cooperation in a host of high-technology areas such as satellite development, missile defence and the like.

However, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) remained on the US blacklist.