United Nations, October 17, SPA -- India has sought total elimination of nuclear arms backed by a security system in which states do not feel the need to develop, produce or stockpile them, The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. "India has remained steadfast to the goal of a nuclearweapon-free world, to be achieved through global, verifiableand non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament," its delegateSushma Swaraj told a UN committee, adding that New Delhi'sresponsible nuclear doctrine is based on no first use andnon-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons States. Urging all nations to work together to achieve the goalof nuclear weapon-free-world, Swaraj, a member of Parliament,told the UN General Assembly's Disarmament and InternationalSecurity Committee that atomic weapons stockpiles, bothstrategic and non-strategic, are too large and mostly onhair-trigger readiness. "The threat of a nuclear war remains real," she told thedelegates. The vision for nuclear free world presented by then PrimeMinister Rajiv Gandhi to third special session of the GeneralAssembly on Disarmament two decades ago not only remainundiminished today but has become more relevant given the factof increasing use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,Swaraj said. India also believes that the Conference on Disarmamentmust find practical ways of addressing the issue of nucleardisarmament in a comprehensive and non-discriminatory manner. New Delhi, she said, also remains constructively engagedin collateral disarmament processes, including on small armsand light weapons, the Biological and Chemical WeaponsConventions and the Convention on Certain ConventionalWeapons. India, she told the delegates, has completed destructionof 84 per cent of its chemical weapons stockpile and iscommitted to destroying its entire stockpile by April 2009.--SPA www.spa.gov.sa/491023