Kingston Reif and Leonor Tomero: U.S.-India Nuclear Energy Deal: What's Next?
Since the summer of 2007, when India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) negotiated a safeguards agreement, the U.S.-India nuclear deal has been in limbo due to opposition from Indian political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian Communists. The Communists, who have provided the Congress Party-led governing coalition with its parliamentary majority for the past four years and see the nuclear deal as a threat to independent Indian foreign policy, threatened to withdraw from the coalition government led by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh if India pushed ahead with the deal.