Prabir Purkayastha A close analysis of the draft India-IAEA safeguards agreement, and the restricted document GOV/1621, reveals that if it comes to the crunch, it is the provisions of the Hyde Act that will prevail. This is what is inbuilt in the agreement, the government's spin notwithstanding. Various commentators have argued that the draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement gives India considerable leeway, denied it under the Hyde Act, in taking corrective action in case fuel supplies are interrupted. To be fair, unlike government spokespersons, some of these analysts concede that all imported reactors will remain permanently under safeguards. But one of the claims adduced by these non-official defenders in support of the Agreement is that India can unilaterally withdra w from IAEA safeguards its indigenous reactors that are made subject to the Agreement, provided all the imported fuel is taken out. This curious conclusion flows from a wholly untenable reading of Article 29 of the Agreement, which states: "The termination of safeguards on items subject to this Agreement shall be implemented taking into account the provisions of GOV/1621 (20 August 1973).' Since the latter is a restricted document of the IAEA's Board of Governors, these non-official analysts have speculated that with respect to termination of safeguards, the import of GOV/1621 into Article 29 has let non-supplied facilities off the hook, by requiring them to be under safeguards only as long as they use imported fuel! From this, they have jumped to the conclusion that therefore for such indigenous facilities, India does not even need to invoke its preambular