Which one of the following is incorrect about India’s Disarmament Policy in recent decades?
- (a)India is a party to all five protocols of the CCW
- (b)India does not support negotiations in the CD on FMCT
- (c)India is party to CWC
- (d)India is not a signatory to CTBT
Correct — B, India does not support negotiations in the CD on FMCT.
The stem asks for the statement that is incorrect. India does not support negotiations in the CD on FMCT reverses India's declared position, because India has backed the opening of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament at Geneva.
India's support is tied to the Shannon Mandate of 1995, which calls for a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
Substantive negotiations have never taken place, though a negotiating mandate was agreed in 1995 and again in 2009. The reason is procedural — the Conference on Disarmament decides by consensus, and CD/1864 (May 2009) was the only programme of work it has agreed since the post-CTBT deadlock set in.
That programme was never implemented, and no agreed programme has started FMCT negotiations since. Carry away that a treaty that was never negotiated is not evidence that India refused to negotiate it.
- (a)India is a party to all five protocols of the CCW — This is accurate, so it cannot be the statement the stem is hunting for. The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980 is a framework treaty whose actual prohibitions sit in protocols annexed to it, and India has consented to be bound by each of the five.
It is the right answer to a question on which conventional-weapons treaty India has accepted in full, protocols included — a contrast with the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Oslo, 2008), which India has not joined.
- (c)India is party to CWC — This is accurate. India signed the Chemical Weapons Convention at the Paris signing conference in January 1993 and ratified it in 1996, becoming a party before the Convention entered into force in 1997, and it is a member of the OPCW.
It is the right answer to a question on which disarmament treaty India joined while declaring an existing stockpile and then destroying it — India's declared chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed under OPCW verification, with completion announced in 2009.
- (d)India is not a signatory to CTBT — This is accurate. India has not signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which opened for signature in 1996, and it is one of the Annex 2 states whose ratification the treaty needs before it can enter into force.
It is the right answer to a question on which nuclear instrument India has stayed outside while observing a voluntary testing moratorium — India declared that moratorium after the 1998 tests and has maintained it since.
Disarmament diplomacy separates two questions that look alike: does a state accept the substance of a ban, and has that ban actually been concluded in a negotiating forum?
India's approach turns on non-discrimination. Where a treaty bans a category of weapons for its parties on equal terms and provides for verification, India has generally joined. Where an instrument would freeze an unequal nuclear order, India has stayed outside.
That is a tendency, not a formula. India has stayed outside the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Oslo, 2008) — both negotiated outside the Conference on Disarmament — on border-security and verification grounds.
The Conference on Disarmament is the standing multilateral body where such treaties are negotiated. It works by consensus, so an unresolved objection keeps an item off its work programme however many states want it taken up.
India argues that the nuclear order built around the Non-Proliferation Treaty is discriminatory, dividing states into those permitted weapons and those not. That argument explains both what India has joined and what it has declined to join.
The same position shapes live diplomacy: India's pursuit of membership in export-control groups, its voluntary testing moratorium, and its insistence that an FMCT be negotiated inside the Conference on Disarmament rather than in a forum created outside it.
So an item on India's disarmament record is testing whether you can read each instrument on its own terms instead of grouping them under a single impression that India stays out.
- The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980) is a framework treaty; its prohibitions are carried by protocols that states accept separately.
- Its five protocols cover non-detectable fragments, mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons, and explosive remnants of war.
- India is a party to the CCW and has consented to be bound by all five of its protocols.
- The Conference on Disarmament, at Geneva, is the standing multilateral disarmament negotiating forum and takes its decisions by consensus.
- The Shannon Mandate (1995) set the FMCT terms: a non-discriminatory, multilateral, internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
- India supports opening FMCT negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament; a negotiating mandate was agreed in 1995 and again in 2009, but substantive negotiations have never taken place.
- India signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 and ratified it in 1996, before the Convention entered into force in 1997.
- India declared a chemical weapons stockpile under the CWC and completed its destruction under OPCW verification, announced in 2009.
- India has not signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and is listed in its Annex 2 of states whose ratification is required for entry into force.
- India has observed a voluntary moratorium on nuclear explosive testing since 1998.
Three of the four options state India's status accurately; the highlighted row is the one option (b) reverses.
- Sliding from 'India is outside the NPT and the CTBT' to 'India resists disarmament treaties' — its CCW and CWC memberships cut the other way.
- Reading a stalled negotiation as an opposed one: the FMCT is unnegotiated because the CD works by consensus and the only programme of work agreed since the CD's post-CTBT deadlock (CD/1864, May 2009) was never implemented; no agreed programme has started FMCT talks since.
- Treating accession to the CCW as automatic acceptance of its protocols, when each protocol requires a separate consent to be bound.
- Blurring signature and ratification: India signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 but became a party on ratifying it in 1996.
- Pairing the wrong body with the wrong treaty — the OPCW implements the CWC, while the FMCT belongs to the Conference on Disarmament.
- In a 'which is incorrect' item, stopping at the first option that reads oddly instead of checking each status; the answer is the one that misstates a fact, not the one that is awkwardly worded.
Treat each named instrument as a status check. Set it beside India and settle which of three things is true: India is a party, India signed but has not ratified, or India is outside it altogether.
A negative frame like the one here rewards the same discipline. Work through every option's status rather than stopping at the first fact you recognise.
It also helps to hold the institution alongside the treaty — the OPCW implements the CWC, the FMCT belongs in the Conference on Disarmament, the CTBTO Preparatory Commission serves the test-ban treaty — so a mismatched pairing shows up at once.
No eligible match among this question's citable set.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following statements about the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is correct?
- (a)It has been negotiated and opened for signature at the United Nations
- (b)India supports its negotiation in the Conference on Disarmament on the basis of the Shannon Mandate
- (c)It obliges its parties to destroy their existing nuclear warheads
- (d)It entered into force earlier than the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Answerb — India has supported the commencement of FMCT negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, on the terms set out in the Shannon Mandate.(a) fails because no FMCT text has been negotiated or opened for signature; the treaty remains a proposal. (c) fails because the proposal addresses the production of fissile material, not the destruction of warheads.
(d) fails because it assumes an entry into force that has not occurred, and the CTBT has not entered into force either.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Shannon Mandate is associated with which one of the following?
- (a)Verification of chemical weapons destruction by the OPCW
- (b)Negotiation of a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons
- (c)The entry-into-force condition of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
- (d)The protocol structure of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
Answerb — the Shannon Mandate of 1995 set the terms for negotiating a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.(a) fails because chemical weapons destruction is verified by the OPCW under the Chemical Weapons Convention, a separate instrument with its own machinery.
(c) fails because the CTBT's entry into force turns on ratification by the states listed in its Annex 2. (d) fails because the CCW's protocol structure comes from the 1980 Convention itself.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements about the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW): 1. Its substantive prohibitions are contained in protocols annexed to it, which states accept separately. 2. India is a party to the Convention as well as to all five of its protocols. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answerc — both statements hold. The 1980 Convention is a framework instrument whose prohibitions sit in annexed protocols that a state consents to be bound by one at a time, and India has consented to the Convention and to all five protocols.(a) and (b) each discard one statement that is in fact correct, and (d) discards both.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following treaties has India both signed and ratified?
- (a)Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
- (b)Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
- (c)Chemical Weapons Convention
- (d)Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (Ottawa Convention)
Answerc — India signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 and ratified it in 1996, and is a party to it and a member of the OPCW.(a) fails because India has not signed the CTBT. (b) fails because India is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
(d) fails because India has not joined the Ottawa Convention; it addresses landmines through Amended Protocol II of the CCW instead.