India has sought total elimination of nuclear arms backed by a security system in which states do not feel the need to develop, produce or stockpile them, The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. "India has remained steadfast to the goal of a nuclear weapon-free world, to be achieved through global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament," its delegate Sushma Swaraj told a UN committee, adding that New Delhi's responsible nuclear doctrine is based on no first use and non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons States. Urging all nations to work together to achieve the goal of nuclear weapon-free-world, Swaraj, a member of Parliament, told the UN General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee that atomic weapons stockpiles, both strategic and non-strategic, are too large and mostly on hair-trigger readiness. "The threat of a nuclear war remains real," she told the delegates. The vision for nuclear free world presented by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to third special session of the General Assembly on Disarmament two decades ago not only remain undiminished today but has become more relevant given the fact of increasing use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, Swaraj said. India also believes that the Conference on Disarmament must find practical ways of addressing the issue of nuclear disarmament in a comprehensive and non-discriminatory manner. New Delhi, she said, also remains constructively engaged in collateral disarmament processes, including on small arms and light weapons, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. India, she told the delegates, has completed destruction of 84 per cent of its chemical weapons stockpile and is committed to destroying its entire stockpile by April 2009.
