India has joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) at a ceremony in South Block, attended by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and diplomats from the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg missions.  India had intensified efforts at gaining membership of the MTCR, the NSG, the Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement since getting a waiver at the NSG in 2008. Membership of these groups would help India trade more effectively in critical high tech areas.

The aim of the MTCR is to restrict the proliferation of missiles, complete rocket systems, unmanned air vehicles and related technology for those systems capable of carrying a 500kg payload for at least 300km, as well as systems intended for the delivery of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

• MTCR membership will enable India to buy high-end missile technology and also enhance its joint ventures with Russia.
• India’s efforts to get into the MTCR also got a boost after it agreed to join the Hague Code of Conduct, dealing with the ballistic missile non-proliferation arrangement, earlier this month.
• India’s membership had been blocked in 2015 by Italy, which seemed to link it to the standoff over the detention of the Italian marines. With the return of the second marine, Salvatore Girone, to Rome on May 29, the sources said, “Italy is no longer blocking the consensus.”
• China, which stonewalled India’s entry into the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the just-concluded Seoul plenary, is not a member of 34-nation MTCR.