Never sign CTBT: Arundhati Ghosh

CALCUTTA, May 24: India must never sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty “in any form as it is absolutely a flawed pact,” says Arundhati Ghosh, who argued the country’s case in the Geneva round of talks in 1996. “I am totally against our government going with any clause of the CTBT. It will be very unfortunate and I, in particular, will be totally upset if there is any re-thinking on part of the Indian government to sign CTBT,” Ghosh, who alone argued India’s viewpoint at several world fora, said. "The CTBT can’t be amended “and it has been clearly written that it is not subject to any correction,” said the retired diplomat. India had always been against discriminatory arms control regime, “and we should not negotiate on NPT and CTBT, and clamour for a convention to eliminate all N-weapons within a specific time-frame,” she said asserting that New Delhi had always been against all discriminatory arms control regimes.

Ghosh, who was India’s envoy to the UN, said New Delhi’s proposal at the worldforum for holding a nuclear weapons elimination convention had then failed to win favour. “In fact, our views were never heard as India was rated poorly whenever we raised such issue. Moreover, the US had been instrumental in ignoring our views since we did not sign the CTBT”.