What is/are the consequence/consequences of a country becoming the member of the ‘Nuclear Suppliers Group’? [2018]

What is/are the consequence/consequences of a country becoming the member of the ‘Nuclear Suppliers Group’?

It will have access to the latest and most efficient nuclear technologies.
It automatically becomes a member of “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)”

Full Membership of the NSG to India would mean:
- Access to Advanced Technology: Access to technology for a range of uses, from medicine to building nuclear power plants for India, from the NSG, which is essentially a traders’ cartel. India has its own indigenously developed technology, but to access state-of-the-art technology possessed by NSG member countries, it has to become part of the group.
- Scaling Nuclear Power: To meet its clean energy goals, India needs to increase nuclear power production. Full membership is necessary for access to all technologies.
- Economic and Strategic Benefits: NSG membership would enable India to commercialize nuclear technology, enhancing high-tech manufacturing, and boosting innovation.
- Regional Cooperation: With NSG technologies, India could enhance civil nuclear cooperation with neighbours like Sri Lanka, and potentially sell advanced reactors to countries such as Bangladesh.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was established in 1974, consisting of nuclear supplier countries, to support nuclear non-proliferation by enforcing two guidelines Governing:
- Nuclear Exports
- Nuclear-Related Exports
One crucial element of the NSG Guidelines is the “Non-Proliferation Principle,” introduced in 1994, which mandates that suppliers authorise transfers only when sure that such transfers will not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The 48 members of the NSG include the five nuclear-weapon states, the US, the UK, France, China and Russia.
India is not a member (this grouping was formed in the aftermath of India’s 1974 nuclear test with the aim of ensuring non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology).
- Although the NSG guidelines prohibit its participating states from engaging in nuclear commerce with a non-NPT state, the 2008 waiver approved by members of the NSG — under Washington’s active diplomacy — lifted nuclear trade sanctions on India.
- NSG waiver helped India to successfully negotiate more than a dozen civil nuclear cooperation agreements.

It does not automatically make a country a member of “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is an international agreement designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. Negotiated between 1965 and 1968 by the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament, UN-sponsored organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, the treaty entered into force in 1970.
The NPT boasts more member countries than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement.
However, four UN Member states have never joined the NPT, including India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan.