In his swearing in speech, the Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh pledged to be a leader in the
complete global elimination of Nuclear weapons.

Today, the opposers of the Indo-US nuclear deal , called the 123 agreement are being dared to withdraw their support of the UPA goverment on grounds of disagreement with this deal.

While the deal itself is comprehensively locked in diplomatic gives and takes, what it really spells is this.That for the future, complete disarmament of nuclear weapons is out of the question.What we will see instead is the powers that possess these weapons will also have the right to determine who else possesses them.

The threat of a nuclear war is as real now as when the US tested the first nuclear test at Alomogordo, New Mexico on 16th July 1945.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty website says   ‘Arms control advocates had campaigned for the adoption of a treaty banning all nuclear explosions since the early 1950s, when public concern was aroused as a result of radioactive fall-out from atmospheric nuclear tests and the escalating arms race.

Over 50 nuclear explosions were registered between 16 July 1945, when the first nuclear explosive test was conducted by the United States at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and 31 December 1953.

Prime Minister Nehru of India voiced the heightened international concern in 1954, when he proposed the elimination of all nuclear test explosions worldwide.’

We have come a long way since then.For those of you who are interested , in more analysis here is the  text of the 123 Agreement, linked via Siddharth Varadarajan’s blog.