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.