Cameron offers India nuclear cooperation

Prime Minister David Cameron has begun his visit to India in controversial fashion by offering the country British cooperation in developing their nuclear programme. The United States agreed in 2008 to help India by exporting their civil nuclear technology and savoir faire but under Labour Britain had baulked at such an idea, fearful that India might misuse the assistance in expanding their military nuclear programme and risk inflaming tensions with neighbours Pakistan. But despite the fact India is not signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Cameron has promised the Delhi government that Britain will help the country’s nuclear advancement. In return Cameron and Business Secretary Vince Cable hope that they can forge strong trading links with Britain's former colony. "There is already a declaration under which a certain amount of modest research takes place," said Cable. "We want to take this to a higher level. There are British companies like Rolls Royce, Serco and others which potentially could do a large amount of business in India. There are obvious security sensitivities. We are conscious of those, as are the Indians. But within those constraints we really want to push ahead with civil nuclear co-operation. That would be quite a big sector within which we could really make progress." Meanwhile Cameron, fresh from his visit to the United States last week, appears intent on being as deferential to the Indians as he was to President Obama. Writing in the Hindu newspaper, Cameron said: "For centuries my country assumed we could set the global economic pace. But economic power is shifting – particularly to Asia – so Britain has to work harder to earn its living in the world...I have come to your country in a spirit of humility. I know that Britain cannot rely on sentiment and shared history for a place in India's future. Your country has the whole world beating a path to its door. But I believe Britain should be India's partner of choice in the years ahead.” One of Cameron’s pressing concerns is to reassure Delhi that they have nothing to fear from Britain’s immigration policy scheduled to come into effect next April, which will limit annual immigration into Britain at 24,100. Cameron, who has taken a 90-strong delegation with him to India, has been warned by Anand Sharma, the Indian commerce minister, that any restrictive immigration policy would have an "adverse effect" on trade relations between the two countries. But Cable yesterday explained to Indian journalists that he sees any proposed cap on immigration as being detrimental to the British economy. "It's no great secret that in my department, and me personally, we want to see an open economy and as liberal an immigration policy as it's possible to have....Certainly in terms of work permits for management and technical staff who are needed in the UK we want the system to operate flexibly. I want to reassure the Indians that we are going to deal with this liberally."

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