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'India cannot escape sanctions'

India's nuclear tests have triggered an American law that could block billions of dollars of aid to India, says The New York Times.

The daily quoted National Security Adviser Sandy Berger as having said he and other top officials were scrutinising the never-used 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act, a federal law that orders President Bill Clinton to impose severe penalties on nations conducting nuclear tests or selling nuclear weapons.

Because of the size of the World Bank loans to India, their cut- off as a result of US pressure ''would have serious implications for their Budget, serious detrimental effects,'' a World Bank official said.

Cutting aid to India would require a majority vote of members of the World Bank. While the United States cannot tell the World Bank what to do, ''we have a fairly heavy vote,'' a senior state department official said.

The New York Times quoted Democratic Senator John Glenn as saying 'those sanctions are mandatory'. The only way to delay them is if the President tells Congress that their immediate imposition would harm national security --- and that dely can only last 30 days. Congress can remove the sanctions by passing a law or a joint resolution.

''It would be hard to avoid the possibility of sanctions,'' a senior state department official was quoted as having said. ''There is no room for wriggling out in the law.''

UNI

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