Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Will he or won't he?

The approaching G-8 summit may push Indian PM Manmohan Singh to sign the U.S.-India nuclear deal, which has been hanging fire for quite a while now. This could lead to the withdrawal of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from the governing coalition and the calling of early elections.

Even if this happens, the deal will still not be ready for implementation, as the IAEA and Nuclear Suppliers Group need to sign off on it, and Singh has said that he will "place the details" before the Indian parliament. Nonetheless, Singh's proceeding with the formalities would allow the Bush administration to start moving the deal to the "done" side of its end-of-term ledger.

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