Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow: India has opposed the international treaties aimed at non-proliferation since they were selectively applicable to the non-nuclear powers and legitimised the monopoly of the five nuclear weapons powers. Thus, India opposed the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India co nducted a series of nu clear tests in M ay 199 8, demonstrating its capacity to use nuclear energy for military purposes. Pakistan soon followed, thereby increasing the... Show more

 Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

India has opposed the international treaties aimed at non-proliferation since they were selectively applicable to the non-nuclear powers and legitimised the monopoly of the five nuclear weapons powers. Thus, India opposed the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India co nducted a series of nu clear tests in M ay 199 8, demonstrating its capacity to use nuclear energy for military purposes. Pakistan soon followed, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the region to a nuclear exchange. The international community was extremely critical of the nuclear tests in the subcontinent and sanctions were imposed on both India and Pakistan, which were subsequently waived. India's nuclear doctrine of credible minimum nuclear deterrence professes 'no first use' and reiterates India's comm itm ent to global, verifiable and nondiscriminatory nuclear disarmament leading to a nuclear weapons free world. Foreign policy is always dictated by ideas of national interest. In the period after 1990, Russia, though it continues to be an important friend of India, has lost its global pre-eminence. Therefore, India's foreign policy has shifted to a more pro-US strategy.

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