One of the most important global problems affecting both nations and individuals today is disarmament. The arm race has reached to such an alarming proportions and is even spilling into outer space. This arms race started in the wake of the Second World War and coincided with the cold war which had divided the world into blocks.
The Second World War, apart from wide spared destruction also marked the beginning of the nuclear era with a destructive power quite unforeseen so far, unfortunately, after the war there emerged a competition among nations to build up their weapons stocks and remain ahead of other. Since then, this race for arms has been continuing a galloping pace. The world today is also threatened with a nuclear holocaust.
As we know, at the end of the Second World War, United Nations was established to maintain peace, and from the very beginning United Nations lookup the cause of regulating armaments on a world wide scale. The very first resolution approved by the UN General Assembly on 24 January, 1946, sought the elimination of atomic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
In 1959 the General Assembly adopted a goal for complete disarmament under effective international control. Since then various steps have been taken and the very substantial step was taken in June 1995 in Geneva to adopt the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
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The treaty contains a comprehensive plan to prohibit nuclear tests. The treaty comprised 154 countries and has been verified by 51 countries. But the ratification America, China and Russia is required to get the treaty into force and these countries have not yet ratified it.
The one of the bizarre fact is that America that preaches other countries to sign it, did not get it approved by its Senate as the treaty is the against of US security, according to them. The 44 countries including five nuclear powers are considered as having nuclear capability, 41 countries of the world have signed it while 26 countries have ratified it.
This treaty however, was full of controversies particularly in view of discriminatory treatment of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Because of this India which had been actively advocating for a comprehensive test ban since 1954 could not agree to sign the CTBT. India is opposing the treaty on the ground that it does not speak about destruction of existing nuclear stockpiles. The treaty also does not contain any time bound destruction programme. So, according to this treaty, disarmament of the weapons would solely depend on the attitude of Nuclear weapon state.
The recent tests of China, France and USA’s underground test put a huge question mark on their intention. The recent withdrawals from ABM clearly show that future is by no way going to be nuclear free world. In such condition India has argued that her security concerns demand nuclear power as our surrounding neighbours have nuclear weapons.
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But India is willing to have a consensus over CTBT in country only if some of her demands are conceded. Such as, it demands that India should be included in the club of Nuclear weapon states and the countries having nuclear arms should go for a comprehensive programme for disarmament with specific time bound resolution. But no proper attention has been given to our demands and India has refused to become a party of the treaty. Though the self moratorium imposed by India is an example of our stand that our nuclear programme is only for alternate purpose. The commitment became more authentic with our proposals of “no first use” which was rejected by Pakistan.