World Bank delays loans for India

The Canadian foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, has said India's decision to test a nuclear bomb meant that it had sacrificed any chance of getting a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

He said the international community had to show it rejected the notion that acquiring a nuclear weapon was a way of elevating a country's status.

Arguments have beenforwarded at the UN in recent times for influential developing countries like India and Brazil to be given a permanent place on the Security Council.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has delayed a decision on whether to approve an eight-hundred million dollar loan to India, following the controversy over the tests.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service