weapons. Others suggested that the fact that India has found chemical weapons dispensable highlighted its confidence in the conventional weapons system at its command. In June 1997, India declared its stock of chemical weapons (1,045 tonnes of sulphur mustard). By the end of 2006, India had destroyed more than 75 percent of its chemical weapons/material stockpile and was granted extension for destroying the remaining stocks by April 2009 and was expected to achieve 100 percent destruction within that time frame. India informed the United Nations in May 2009 that it had destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons in compliance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention. With this India has become third country after South Korea and Albania to do so. This was cross-checked by inspectors of the United Nations. India has an advanced commercial chemical industry, and produces the bulk of its own chemicals for domestic consumption. It is also widely acknowledged that India has an extensive civilian chemical and pharmaceutical industry and annually exports considerable quantities of chemicals to countries such as the United Kingdom, United States and Taiwan. Nuclear weapons As early as 26 June 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, soon to be India's first Prime Minister, announced: Nehru pursued a policy of formally foregoing nuclear weapons while at the same time constructing a civilian nuclear energy program, and by extension the capability to make a nuclear bomb. This policy was motivated by a conventional weapons superiority over its rivals Pakistan and China. India built its first research reactor in 1956 and its first plutonium reprocessing plant by 1964. India's nuclear programme can trace its origins to March 1944 and its three-stage efforts in technology were established by Homi Jehangir Bhabha when he founded the nuclear research centre, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. India's loss to China in a brief Himalayan border war in October 1962, provided the New Delhi government impetus for developing nuclear weapons as a means of deterring potential Chinese aggression. By 1964 India was in a position to develop nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri opposed developing nuclear weapons but fell under intense political pressure, including elements within the ruling Indian National Congress. India was also unable to obtain security guarantees from either the United States or the Soviet Union. As a result, Shastri announced that India would pursue the capability of what it called "peaceful nuclear explosions" that could be weaponized in the