India Has “Clean Waiver” on Nuclear Supplies: Pranab

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that India has a “clean waiver” for its civil nuclear programme from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and that India is not concerned about what G-8 says.

The minister made the aforementioned statement while speaking in the Rajya Sabha. It should be noted that last week, G-8 passed a resolution banning transfer of enrichment and reprocessing items to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and India is one prominent country that has not signed the treaty.

Last year, the NSG had waived its export rules to allow the sale of nuclear equipment, fuel and technology to India. The then administration of George W. Bush played a leading role in persuading NSG member countries to do so.