9. Disarmament

The foreign policy of India is opposed to arms race and advocates disarmament, both conventional and nuclear. This is aimed at promoting world peace and security by reducing or ending tensions between power blocs and to accelerate economic development of the country by preventing the unproductive

expenditure on the manufacture of arms. India has been using the UNO platform to check the arms race and to achieve disarmament. India took the initiative of holding a six-nation summit at New Delhi in 1985 and made concrete proposals for nuclear disarmament.

By not signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, India has kept its nuclear options open. India opposes NPT and CTBT due to their discriminatory and hegemonistic nature. They perpetuate an international system in which only five nations (USA, Russia, China, UK and France) can legitimately posses nuclear weapons.