Amandeep Singh Gill appointed as India's Ambassador to UN Conference on Disarmament

Senior IFS officer Amandeep Singh Gill was appointed as the India’s Ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament, Geneva.
He is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of 1992 batch. He had represented India on the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Missiles from 2007 to 2008. Besides, he was also member of the Indian delegation to the Conference on Disarmament during the negotiations on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
What is UN Conference on Disarmament?

• The Conference on Disarmament (CD) is not formally a United Nations (UN) organization. It is linked to the UN through a personal representative of the UN Secretary-General
• It is a forum established in 1979 by the international community to negotiate multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements.
• The conference has 65 members represent all areas of the world, including all known nuclear-weapon states (including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea)
• Resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly often request conference to consider specific disarmament matters. In turn, conference annually reports its activities to UNGA.
• In the 1990s, the Conference had held intensive efforts to draft CTBT text and its two annexes, but it did not succeed in reaching consensus on the adoption of the text.
• Currently it conducts discussion on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), a pact to prevent an arms race in outer space, nuclear disarmament and negative security assurances (NSA).

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2016