India's Foreign Ministry has announced that the instrument of ratification has been submitted to the Director-General, International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, who is the depository of the convention.

The Convention on Nuclear Safety was adopted in Vienna on June 17, 1994, and it entered into force on Oct. 24, 1996.

The convention establishes a legal obligation on the part of the signatories to adopt certain safety principles for constructing, operating and regulating land-based civilian nuclear power plants under their jurisdiction.

"Fully conscious of the responsibilities arising from the possession of advanced and comprehensive capabilities in the entire gamut of nuclear fuel cycle operations, India attaches great importance to the issue of nuclear safety," the foreign ministry statement said.

"India shares the objective of the convention of maintaining a high level of nuclear safety worldwide through the enhancement of national measures and international cooperation, including in safety-related technical cooperation."

India has signed the convention at a time when the world is scorning neighboring Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan for his allegedly passing on nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

India, which conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and in 1998, is known to have maintained high standards of nuclear safety. A nuclear power plant on the shores of Indian Ocean survived the Dec. 26 killer tsunami waves.

New Delhi said that it has over the past five decades established a multi-layered regulatory infrastructure, underpinned by a substantive corpus of longstanding legislation, for ensuring the safety of nuclear installations. "India is implementing measures based on general safety principles to meet the objectives of the convention," the statement said.

However, India remained committed to fully explore the possibility of using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including power generation.

The statement said: "Nuclear power, as a safe and secure energy source, is an indispensable component for meeting the development needs of a large and growing economy like India.

"In exploring its full potential for peaceful purposes to which India is committed, the importance of international cooperation including in the field of safety-related technologies cannot but be over-emphasized."

The United States, which is opposed to Iran-India gas pipeline, has been prodding New Delhi to explore the other sources of energy, including nuclear energy to meet its growing demand.

By signing the nuclear safety convention, India has also formally joined the elite group of nuclear powers in the world. The international community had not granted India a formal status of a nuclear power, and it has long been known as nuclear capable.

Despite a persistent world pressure, India has so far not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The CTBT, adopted in September 1996 by the United Nations General Assembly in New York, is still to enter into force pending its signing by three nations and its ratification by eight nations.

The treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, has so far helped bring about the global nuclear test moratorium.

To date, 174 states have signed and 120 have ratified the treaty. Of the 44 states required for the CTBT to come into force, all have signed but for North Korea, India, and Pakistan.

But only 33 have ratified the treaty. Among the remaining eight who have signed but not ratified are China, Israel, Iran and the United States.

New Delhi has been resisting international pressure for long to sign the CTBT, saying the treaty is biased in favor of five declared nuclear powers - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

India says the treaty is neither comprehensive nor does it ban the tests. It says the CTBT would allow the five nuclear powers to fine-tune their nuclear arsenals since the treaty does not bar computer simulation tests.

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