Can the nuclear race in the Indian subcontinent lead to a major famine in the world, with even big nations like the United States of America and the Peoples Republic of China being hit by acute shortage of food?

Syed Akbar
Hyderabad:  Can the nuclear race in the Indian subcontinent
lead to a major famine in the world, with even big nations like the
United States of America and the Peoples Republic of China being hit
by acute shortage of food?

With India successfully test-firing Agni-5, the long-range ballistic
missile capable of hitting targets as far away as 5,500 km, the
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has come
out with a new report that predicts significant climate disruption
around the globe in case of a regional nuclear war between India and
Pakistan.

The report, prepared in association with the Physicians for Social
Responsibility, US, will be released on Tuesday. It points out that
the new missile test has once again ratchet up tensions in the South
Asia region. A regional nuclear war such as a clash between India and
Pakistan would cause significant climate disruption around the globe,
leading to a sharp decline in agricultural production. This is the
first major report on the consequences of a regional nuclear war on
agricultural production, global climate and environment, and the
health of human beings, animals and plants.

Both the USA and China will be affected in terms of agricultural
production that could trigger a famine jeopardizing the already
precarious lives of the nearly one billion malnourished people on
earth, according to Dr Ira Hefand, who prepared the report based on
primary research articles to be published in the journal Climatic
Change. Dr Hefand is the vice-president of the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, North America unit.

According to the study, the nuclear weapons danger is real and growing
- nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the thousands of
weapons still on hair-trigger alert in the United States and Russia
put the planet at risk.

Along with global warming, nuclear war is the greatest preventable
danger facing humankind. There are still more than 20,000 nuclear
weapons in the world, and no comprehensive process is under way to
abolish them. Opinion polls show that a majority of the world’s
peoples want their governments to start negotiations to rid the world
of nuclear weapons.

Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led
organisation in the US working to prevent nuclear war and
proliferation and to slow, stop and reverse global warming without
using expensive, unsafe nuclear power and toxic degradation of the
environment.