Several NSG members, including Austria and Ireland, are concerned about the deal's ramifications for the anti-proliferation effort.

ECONOMIST: India

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), its next destination, might prove stickier.

ECONOMIST: India

That could even leave every NSG member except America jostling for lucrative nuclear contracts with India, with France and Russia at the head of the pack.

ECONOMIST: India

It would also break the rules of a little-known cartel, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), of which both China, Pakistan's pal, and America, India's friend, are members.

ECONOMIST: Pakistan, India and the anti-nuclear rules

Indeed, it is possible that the NSG might approve the deal, but leave the American Congress too little time to debate it before Mr Bush quits office on January 19th.

ECONOMIST: India

Bangalore is also mourning the loss of a leading commando - National Security Guard (NSG) Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan - who was killed during operations to flush out gunmen from the Taj Mahal Palace hotel.

BBC: Mumbai police mourn their dead

Hitherto NSG rules barred nuclear commerce with any country that had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or had not put all its nuclear industry under safeguards operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear guardian.

ECONOMIST: Mourning an exemption that may defeat the rules