N-weapons free world: India lashes out at NPT zealots

United Nations: India yesterday appeared to attack a stream of thought, which likes to project the world at risk because of accumulation of n-weapons by a few nations such as India, by pointing out that the world was nowhere near close to a universally acknowledged goal of eliminating nuclear weapons by the year 2010. In particular, as India pointed out, this was the goal of an action plan presented by former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to the United Nations over two decades ago.

"22 years ago, on 9th June 1988, India's then prime minister, the young Shri Rajiv Gandhi, presented... an Action Plan for a Nuclear Weapons-Free and Non-violent World Order, which set out a roadmap to attain the goal of nuclear disarmament...by this year, 2010," Indian delegate Mani Shankar Aiyar said at the UN General Assembly here yesterday.

"Tragically, we are no nearer attaining that goal today than we were 22 years ago," he added. "The promise of a nuclear weapon-free world, which seemed a real possibility near the end of the Cold War, has been belied."

Maybe there was more than a touch of sarcasm in his observation that countries which were once advocates of the deterrence policy that contributed to the nuclear arms race were now speaking out against the possession of nuclear weapons.

Aiyar said this was the "one ray of hope."

He also noted that several world leaders had acknowledged the necessity of moving towards the goal of a global zero.