One of the key outcomes of the recent visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Australia was an agreement for the supply of uranium to India. The joint statement issued during the visit says the agreement will “enable long-term Australian uranium exports to India for exclusively peaceful purposes and under IAEA safeguards.”

This agreement can be traced back to another document, the India-Australia Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in September 2014 and entered into force in November 2015. The fact that the 2014 agreement was finally operationalized 12 years later highlights a strategic shift.

Australia exports uranium to more than 40 countries under established frameworks, but India, as a nuclear-armed state outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty, required a more complex set of safeguards. At the bilateral summit in Melbourne, Australia reiterated its strong support for Indian membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

The timing of the decision by Australia to supply uranium to India is significant. It comes months after New Delhi passed the SHANTI Act (the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act), which modernizes India’s nuclear framework and opens the door to greater private sector participation in India’s nuclear energy sector, which has been lacking so far.

Since the landmark 2008 India-US nuclear agreement, India has signed nuclear deals with a host of countries, but operationalizing them has been difficult. It currently operates 24 nuclear power reactors across seven different sites with a total installed capacity of 8.78........

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