It is working on a longer range missile - the Agni plus capable of striking major urban centres in eastern China. India is also aggressively developing a submarine-based delivery system to have the third leg of a nuclear triad. And based on its high-tech nuclear know-how it is on its way to develop a submarine-based launch capability.

These are the findings of an Independent Task Force co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society - chaired by former US Ambassador to India Frank G Wisner II, former US Ambassador to Pakistan Nicholas Platt and President of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations Marshall M Bouton.

The 1998-99 Talbott-Singh talks failed to obtain agreement on India’s freezing production of fissile material, signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), or adopting other nuclear restraints.

The Bush administration has not pressed on this front except to urge stricter Indian controls over the exports of materials and technology that could be used for WMD. On the CTBT both Pakistan and India appear to be on the same page given by the Bush administration’s opposition to the treaty. Both continue to maintain respective moratoria on testing, but US decisions on developing new types of nuclear weapons like bunker busters could have an impact on Indian thinking, the findings say.

Barring some sort of South Asian arms agreement, India and Pakistan are almost certain to continue with their nuclear weapon capabilities in response to what each perceives the other is doing. This is similarly true with regard to missile-delivery systems. Thus, especially in the absence of India-Pakistan nuclear discussions and confidence-building measures the threat of any major conflict going nuclear remains real, the findings warn.