I think there would be all types of clauses/pre-conditions in any treaty India signs. It is up to us to make the use of these clauses in India's best national interests. There are certain imperatives for the deal that just cannot be avoided: India needs cleaner energy if our growth is to be environmentally sustainable, and nuclear isolation is not helping us at all. Our reserves are thorium based, and neither have we been able to develop technology to exploite these reserves, nor do we have sufficient uranium reserves to exploit uranium power plants. Considering the above, and also the fact that companies in the US have been able to develop technologies for Thorium based power generation, it seems logical that we allow our companies to gain access to this technology and develop our own power plants based on this technology, successfully circumventing the "return of equipment" clause. Moreover, we would also free up our uranium reserves for our strategic offensive capabilities. Finally, by seeming to ally with US interests after signing the deal, we would also gain critical US support for other international issues, namely a permanent UN Security Council seat, as well as more listening on Pak sponsored terror. Finally, just for comparison, we should remember that China has agreed to much more stringent conditions on a similar treaty it has signed with the United States on nuclear cooperation, and has successfully maintained its nuclear sovereignity as well.
