Sightly dated artcile (September 2006), but infomrative, so enjoy:
INDIA-US NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
by: M.R. Iyer, former Head, RSS Division, BARC &
former Safeguards Inspector, IAEA.
[quote]
Background
It was Dr. Homi Bhabha who presided over the first
Geneva Conference in 1955 which for the first time opened
up nuclear technology to the world following President
Eisenhower’s atoms for peace program. It is an anachronism
that India who along with other nations was instrumental in
opening up the technology to the world are now knocking at
the door to get admitted. Dr Bhabha was one of the originators
of the International Atomic Energy Agency and India a
member of the Council which formed the IAEA. Dr.
Chidambaram during his tenure as Chairman of the IAEA
Board of Governors while unveiling the bust of Dr. Bhabha
at the IAEA headquarters in 1997 mentioned that it was
Dr.Bhabha’s casting vote which decided the IAEA HQ in
favour of Vienna rather than Geneva. Due to pioneering
contributions in establishing IAEA India is one of the 10
designated members of the Board of Governors. During this
half century we have gone through several vicissitudes in
isolation but the Indian nuclear technology stood the tests
and matured well thanks to the successive enlightened
leaderships.
Dr. Kakodkar, Chairman AEC addressing IAEA general
conference last month on September 20th announced about
the “emerging possibility for expanding civil nuclear
cooperation between India and the international community
and India’s preparedness to contribute to international efforts
in scaling new technological frontiers such as fast breeder
reactors as an equal partnerâ€