ABSTRACT
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is unlikely to achieve its goal of ushering in a nuclear-weapons-free world. While it outlaws the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition, transfer, possession, stockpiling and use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, it presently bans the bomb for those who do not have it! Instead, the focus should be on trying to find ways of nudging nuclear possessors in this direction. One way of doing so would be to empathetically examine their points of opposition to the treaty. For India, opposition is centred on the forum in which the TPNW was negotiated and the issue of verification and compliance.
