Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Kazakhstan last month is a reminder of the Central Asian stakes for Indian foreign policy.
While Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev needed legitimacy for his re-election victory that has been criticized in Western capitals, for New Delhi there are real issues in that part of the world that concern its national security and economic growth.
Not surprisingly, the two main areas that were given serious consideration were the civilian nuclear cooperation pact and the situation in Afghanistan. New Delhi and Astana signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, which provides a legal framework for cooperation in this field including fuel supply, joint mining of uranium, reactor safety mechanisms and construction and operation of nuclear power plants.