History: It took 3 yrs to get approval for N-deal

THE WAY SO FAR: For over three years, the Indo-US nuclear deal has been a hotly debated issue.

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New Delhi: India on Saturday finally came out of the 34-year old nuclear apartheid. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has cleared the waiver for Indo-US nuclear deal.

The approval came after almost three days of meeting in Vienna on Saturday. The NSG meet was called to minimise any damage to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPY), which India has not joined.

For over three years, the Indo-US nuclear deal has been a hotly debated issue.

Here is a look at how the deal reached this last leg over the years.

It was on July 15, 2005 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush signed a joint statement expressing their plan to sign a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation deal.

In March 2006, India presented a plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, and place the former under international safeguards.

In November 2006, the US Congress approved the Hyde Act giving the green signal to sell nuclear technology to India.

In July 2007, India and US finalised the 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement.

With growing criticism from the Left and Opposition, PM was forced to defend the deal in Parliament the very next month.

Yet by October 2007, the deal slipped into a temporary limbo as the Left parties continued to stall.

Between November 2007 and June 2008, several parleys of the UPA-Left panel failed to break the deadlock.

Meanwhile, Indian negotiators had finalised the text of a pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency.(IAEA). But a decision to go ahead was deferred.

By July, the Left had made its stand clear. Go ahead with the IAEA pact, and risk losing their support.

But the government decided to call the bluff. On his way to Japan for the G8 meeting, Singh announced they will go ahead with the pact, the Government had backing from a new ally, the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The Communists withdrew support and called for a vote of no confidence, which the UPA Government managed to win on July 22, 2008.

From then the Nuke Deal was on fast track. Within 10 days it had sailed through the IAEA board of governors.

But it took two meetings of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to finalise a waiver for India from existing guidelines of global nuclear trade.