Saturday, August 20 2005 14:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Aug 20, 2005) said the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has lost its relevance for India.

Kalam said India became a nuclear weapon state in 1998, its nuclear doctrine states 'we will not test further' and mentions about 'no-first use' of nuclear weapons and India is for complete disarmament.

"With these three, CTBT has lost relevance", he said to a query from a boy who asked the President about India's stand on CTBT at a function to mark the inauguration of the Silver Jubilee Programme of Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishat in Bangalore.

Replying to a question posed by another student, Kalam said India has well-established capabilities in nuclear waste management at its nuclear facilities.

He said, answering another query, that the capability to build rockets and spacecraft was one of the most important achievements of India's space programme, which started in 1963.

"One of the very important achievements is to build large rocket system using our own technology and to launch any type of spacecraft", he said. In this context, he noted that India has planned an unmanned mission to the Moon in 2007.

In his speech, the President said it was essential that technologies that give immediate benefits to the people directly or indirectly should be 'packaged and successfully put with our Indian political systems irrespective of which party they belonged'.