India may launch global process for ban on N-weapons: Mani Shankar Aiyar

NEW DELHI: India is mulling launching a new global process to prepare the way for a legal ban on nuclear weapons, Rajya Sabha member Mani Shankar Aiyar has said at a meeting of a global advocacy group in Los Angeles.

Speaking at the Global Zero Summit yesterday, he made a strong pitch for start of multilateral negotiations for elimination of nuclear weapons and made suggestions based on a report he had prepared on Rajiv Gandhi's 1988 Action Plan for a Nuclear-Weapons Free and non-violent World Order.

"...in effect, India will be launching a new global process to prepare the way for a legal ban on nuclear weapons," he said referring to the report he presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August.

The 284-page report outlines a seven-point roadmap, including India reiterating its commitment to eliminating its own arsenal as part of a universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable global process and promoting delegitimising of nuclear weapons to set the stage for "negotiating Nuclear Weapons Convention that would discuss a world without nuclear weapons in a specified time frame".