Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 17
Top nuclear scientist R Chidambaram today said there was no need for India to change its “no first use” policy.
Dr Chidambaram was taking questions from a gathering of strategic thinkers after delivering the Commodore Jasjit Singh Memorial Lecture on national security, organised by the Centre for Air Power Studies here.
Dr Chidambaram, who was a key member of the team that conducted nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998, said, “There is no need to change the ‘no first use’ policy. As a responsible country, it is a good position to keep.”
The former Chief Scientific Adviser to the government went on to argue “If every country agrees to NFU, disarmament would be achieved.”
Dr Chidambaram, who worked as Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, said no more nuclear tests were need.
He said, “We cleaned up our knowledge (of physics) during the tests. We have the data. With supercomputing, India does not need to carry out any further tests.” He reminded the audience that New Delhi had declared a moratorium on further nuclear tests.
He described India’s nuclear programme as unique and pointed out how it had developed locally. “We did not steal or spy for it. The more control major nuclear powers put, we became better. If anything is denied, you should have the capability to make it, but there was no need to reinvent the wheel,” he said.
Addressing a wide gamut of issues affecting national security, he cited the example of Japan and the USSR to say “development without security or security without development was meaningless”. Japan, he said, developed without putting money on security, while the USSR was top on security, but stunted in development.
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