Defence Minister
Read the passages given below and answer the questions that follow them:
Defence minister ManoharParrikar’s penchant for off-the-cuff comments came to the fore once again on Thursday when he wondered why India should be bound by a ‘no first use’ (NFU) policy on nuclear weapons. Shortly after, both Parrikar and his ministry clarified that his words reflected “his personal opinion and not the government’s official position.”
Holding that India needed to be unpredictable in its strategy while speaking at a book launch here, Parrikar said, “Why should I bind myself (to an NFU doctrine)? I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my (personal) thinking.” But the remarks, in the wake of heightened tensions with Pakistan, created a flutter even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Japan. The visit is likely to see the two nations ink a civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
Japan has had long-standing concerns about India not being a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Moreover, India has also been making a concerted bid to get into the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls trade and transfer of sophisticated nuclear technology and material, a move blocked by China and other countries.
Pakistan often brandishes its tactical nuclear weapons as an effective first response to India’s conventional military superiority. Parrikar, on his part, took a dig at media and said it would publish reports saying the nuclear doctrine had been changed by the NDA government.
“It has not been changed by the government. It is my concept. As an individual, I get the feeling. I am not saying you have to use it first. A hoax can be called off (sic),” he said, adding that the Pakistani defence minister used to threaten India with the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons prior to India’s ‘surgical strike’ on terror launch pads in POK on September 29. “From the day the surgical strike happened, no threat has come. They realized that we can do something which is not well defined,” he said, asking why India should rule out the option of using nuclear weapons.
India had declared the NFU policy to assuage global concerns and position itself as “a responsible nuclear power” after conducting the Pokhran II nuclear tests in 1998 when the Vajpayee-led NDA government was in power.
Though there have been several calls to junk the NFU policy since, with even the BJP manifesto in the run-up to the 2014 polls stressing the need to ‘revise and update’ the nuclear doctrine, successive governments have stuck to that stand.
India’s nuclear doctrine lays down that while there will be NFU, “nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.”
Questions
I. Answer briefly:
1. How did ManoharParrikar’s penchant for off-the-cuff comments come to the fore once again?
2. Why did the remark create a flutter?
3. What did the Pakistani defence minister threaten India with?
4. Why did India declare the ‘no first use’ nuclear policy?
II. Vocabulary:
1.The word ‘unpredictable’ means:
(a) which can’t be predicted (b) which can be predicted
(c) which can’t be assessed (d) which can’t be seen
2. The opposite of ‘irresponsibility’ is:
(a) responsible (b) responsibility (c) irresponsible (d) liability
3. The noun form of ‘realised’ is:
(a) realise (b) realising (c) realisation (d) real
4. The word ‘massive’ means:
(a) huge (b) big (c) long (d) many
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