New Delhi, April 6 : The Lok Sabha on Wednesday took up a Bill to amend the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005 to prohibit financing of such weapons. Moving the Bill for discussion, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the Bill was in national and global interest. “(It) prohibits unlawful activities in respect of biological chemical and nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Initial thoughts were about export control… In recent years, however, international regulations have been strengthened, in particular the UN Security Council and … their recommendations have mandated provisions against financing of these weapons,” he said. He said presently there are no specific provisions in the 2005 legislation related to regulation or prohibition of financing. “Therefore there is a need to amend the WMD act to do so.” The Bill also proposes empowering the Central government to attach assets to prohibit such financing. Participating in the debate, Congress MP Uttam Kumar Reddy said the government also needed to focus on countries financing creation of weapons of mass destruction. “We all know who is financing terror operations against India… I think FATF has put Pakistan on the grey list… The government of India needs to do more on countries financing weapons of mass destruction against India,” Reddy said. The MP said he has served on both the Pakistan and China border as a fighter pilot. “It should be alarming that all of Pakistani aircraft now and the modern Chinese aircraft can deliver weapons of mass destruction. On one hand you have Pakistan and Chinese modern acquisition, on the other hand the Indian Air Force with a sanctioned strength of 42 fighter squadrons has come down to 28… “The government should take a very serious note of it,” he said. AO MR