Is India backing out from its commitment to No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons (NWs)? It was a highly debated issue in newspapers and electronic media in August 2019. What triggered this question? In this chapter, I intend to, after explaining significance of NWs in Indian defence strategy...

This paper discusses making No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons enshrined in the Indian Nuclear Doctrine as a first step towards nuclear disarmament. The proposal derives its credence from the efforts of the US President Barrack Obama to place nuclear disarmament as an important policy of his...

This chapter justifies India’s acquisition of nuclear weapons on the basis of an ancient Roman dictum: Si vis pacem, para bellum , which means, ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’. However, Indian leaders were far more imbued with idealism than realism. Nehru’s successors were not able...

India became a NWS (Nuclear Weapons State) most reluctantly in May 1998 despite her demonstration of nuclear weapons capability 24 years earlier in May 1974. Having assumed the new status as the sixth overt nuclear weapons state, India also declared her principled policy governing use of nuclear...

This volume presents a range of views on the current state of global nuclear disarmament from eminent scholars from India, Israel and France. Chapters present and analyse the relationships between India, Pakistan and the USA, Russia and the USA, the position of the EU and of Israel. The...

It is the US that gave birth to nuclear weapons and continues to be the most heavily armed nuclear power in the world. The US is not only the first country to go nuclear but also the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons. It dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August...

The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government negotiated with the Bush Administration a Civilian Nuclear Deal (CND) in July 2005. There is no indication that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken Parliament into confidence before he went to the US. However, he made a statement...