Australia has banned a budding young Indian engineer from accepting a prestigious scholarship to study in Melbourne, over fears his research might help spread weapons of mass destruction.
The decision was described as "bizarre" in India, and has sparked angry demands for a diplomatic protest at the highest levels for treating the country as a "rogue nuclear state" less than a year after the Coalition government praised India's "impeccable record" of non-proliferation. 
Australia has ratified a deal to sell uranium to the south Asian giant.
Ananth SM, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer from southern India, won a scholarship toMelbourne University almost a year ago to study a PhD in fluid mechanics.
But after months of delay, Mr Ananth was finally told this week that he could not take up the scholarship. The Foreign Affairs Department told him that Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had refused him entry to Australia because he was "a person whose presence in Australia may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction".
The Immigration Department was not swayed by Mr Ananth's appeal that his research was based on "freely available" mathematical models, and that he had "never been involved, even remotely, in any religious or political organisations that could spread some form of hatred."
"I'm really upset, I have worked hard to secure this offer," Mr Ananth told Fairfax on Wednesday. He said he was sure the rejection would have disastrous consequences for his career as it would "follow me wherever I go". My career is going to end before it gets started."
University of Melbourne Professor Richard Sandberg of the Department of Mechanical Engineering said he was surprised Mr Ananth had been refused a visa, and he supervised other international students - including from India - carrying out similar research.
He had offered Mr Ananth the scholarship because he made a strong application and was from a group of students who had done well at Cambridge University.
Prominent Indian MP Shashi Tharoor - chair of the country's External Affairs Committee of parliament - has blasted Australia's decision to refuse Mr Ananth a visa.
"How an Indian scholar could be subject to such a bizarre suspicion ... is unacceptable since it clubs Indian nationals working in certain sectors with those of rogue nuclear states like North Korea and Pakistan," Dr Tharoor said.
The Immigration Department did not answer questions directly on the case but said all visa applicants must meet relevant health, character and security checks, and the department may rely on information from "other agencies".
A bitter debate about the sale of uranium to India plagued Australia's ties with the country for several years before the Gillard Labor government eventually relented in 2012. Only last month, Australia formally backed India to join the global club of nuclear suppliers.