Siddharth Varadarajan New Delhi: Contrary to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's assurance that the process of finalising India's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency would begin only after the United Progressive Alliance won a vote of confidence in Parliament, the government has given the go-ahead for the draft text to be forwarded to the Agency's Board of Governors. In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, the IAEA Secretariat said that "at the request of the government of India,' the draft safeguards agreement had been circulated to the 35-nation Board "for its consideration.' It added that the Chairman of the Board "is consulting with Board members to agree on a date for a meeting when the Agreement would be considered' and that the text of the draft was not public. The Board is scheduled to meet on July 28 to discuss an unrelated matter, but an attempt could be made to make the India draft an agenda item for that meeting. At a press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Mukherjee was asked when the government intended to send the agreement to the IAEA Board. He replied this would be done only after the government demonstrated it had majority support in the Lok Sabha. IAEA sources in Vienna told The Hindu that although safeguards agreements normally circulated for 45 days before being taken up by the Board for approval, the Chairman