new delhi prime minister manmohan singh was just not a dealmaker he was also his partys consciencekeeper the final call was of course party president sonia gandhis but manmohan lay down all the cards before the senior leadership of the party explaining the possible gains from the deal as well as the pitfallsthe pitfalls first the left he told them was bound to be awfully annoyed the us was generally speaking viewed with suspicion by them on top of that they were particularly furious with george bush for his iraq invasion and there was a section of the people who shared this view especially muslimsmuslims explained the pm would be deadly opposed to the nuclear deal with the us not because they were any less patriotic manmohan hastily added but because they genuinely found bush hostile to islam so expect protests this might also affect the muslim vote and finally there were the nuclear scientists who were not exactly tickled by the idea of international inspection of the facilitiesthe call there was taken by sonia she was convinced that on the balance the deal would be good for the country just as bush drove it in the us convinced that india was the partner he wanted in one of his first meetings with manmohan bush reportedly said what i promise i deliverit was unlikely that india was therefore being led up the garden path have totted up the pluses from the deal sonia gave the green signal the pluses will no doubt be listed by the pm when he tells parliament about the agreementapart from assured supply of nuclear fuel for its reactors the main gain for india will come in the shape of a fresh infusion of life into its really high tech sectorin short the calculation is that the most significant gains will accrue to the indian economy for the past 30odd years since pokharani india has put up a brave face against a world piling up technology denial regimes against it after pokharanii these sanctions became virtually crippling government sources claim that this has cramped growth particularly industrial growthapparently for a very simple reason nuclear technology is intimately connected with high technology cutting across sectors if india wanted highperformance computers for say medicinal research that was denied because somewhere down the line it had dualuse properties so from pharma biotech it defence space defence even highend manufacturing indian firms have been falling shortfor the past few years the enduring litany and lobbying efforts of indias top industry organisation has been to attempt to break through this restrictive regime as india grew as a market and advanced knowledge economy india inc chafed under the burden of being a nuclear outlaw senior government sources said successive indian governments had tried to dismantle this regime but until indias economic growth grew significantly the argument had no traction with the world powersbesides there was also the assessment in the indian government that it was only with the us that this deal