The point is the final form of US legislation does not impose any additional conditions on India beyond those agreed to by India in the July 18, 2005 joint statement and the March 2, 2006 separation plan.

In addition to this categorical assurance, the PM had elaborated on certain criticisms of the earlier bills. Even at that time five of the nine points referred to by the PM had no real significance as they were not the subject matter of any of the bills at that time and the criticisms were a result of misreading — deliberate or otherwise — of the bills by the critics. Another was in reference to the India-US bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which is yet to be finalised. The remaining three elements — full civil nuclear cooperation, principle of reciprocity and certification — all have been addressed satisfactorily in the joint bill. The requirement of an annual certification by the president, notwithstanding the fact that it was non-binding on India, has been removed. The principle of reciprocity has been restored. Finally, the explicit prohibitions on certain exports relating to enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production have been removed although the final version may still attract some criticism.

The final version of the bill is not perfect. It contains redundancies — provisions that are already covered by various existing US laws — that do not add to the bill’s effectiveness and yet are certain to attract criticism in India. For instance, Section 107 on MTCR Adherent status is already covered under the Arms Export Control Act in an explicit manner. Nothing in the current bill, minus Section 107, would have in any manner altered India’s adherent status under US laws. Yet the only explanation for the inclusion of the final bill is that “ the conferees included section 107 to clarify this point”! In another instance, the conference bill while modifying the earlier Section 107, End-Use Monitoring Programme, requires measures to be taken to obtain assurances pursuant to the export licensing authorities of the Department of Commerce, including conditions on end-use monitoring — which has been already concluded between India and the US a long ago.

... contd.