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INDIA IS A LAND of ancient civilization, with cities and villages, cultivated fields, and great works of art dating back 4,000 years. India's high population density and variety of social, economic, and cultural configurations are the products of a long process of regional expansion. In the last decade of the twentieth century, such expansion has led to the rapid erosion of India's forest and wilderness areas in the face of ever-increasing demands for resources and gigantic …

…to nuclear weapons proliferation and in August 1996 refused to ratify the United Nations-sponsored Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty unless the treaty required the destruction of the world's existing nuclear weapons within a prescribed period. To concur with the treaty as it stood, some Indian observers felt, would limit the country's sovereignty. Meanwhile, several senior active-duty and retired military and foreign servicers proposed that India should formally declare itself a nuclear-weapons state and give a "no-first-use" assurance.