The IHT has a story summarizing the implications of nuclear power for India:

Almost a tenth of India’s economy was being murdered in the dark, strangled by power shortages. And then George W. Bush said, “Let there be light.” That, in a nutshell, is the thrust of a much-debated nuclear-energy agreement that the U.S. president pursued and concluded Thursday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in New Delhi…

An acute power crisis is all too visible. Computer software companies in Bangalore keep enough generator fuel to last them a week, or longer, in case the overburdened power distribution network breaks down. Households are buying “intelligent” washing machines that “remember” where they had stopped when power went out. That way, people don’t waste time, water and detergent by starting all over again after supply resumes. For Singh’s government, nuclear energy is fast emerging as the centerpiece of a strategy to ease the power crunch…

In their joint declaration, the two leaders agreed that India would separate its military nuclear program from the civilian one, and that it would voluntarily place the latter under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In return, Bush recognized India as a “responsible state with advanced nuclear technology” and promised to adjust U.S. and international laws, to give India’s civilian facilities unrestricted access to imported nuclear technology…

If India can use the accord to overcome its energy crisis, there is a lot that its fast-growing economy can buy from the rest of the world. That will be the ultimate economic prize for the global economy if it accepts India as a de facto nuclear-weapons state. Whether the prize is worth the risk of “tempting” states without nuclear weapons to give up their “self-restraint,” as Talbott puts it, is for Congress to decide. [IHT]