Fusion, radiation applications and nuclear governance

Prelims

Nuclear medicine cannot stockpile what it uses, because its isotopes decay in hours or days, so a scan or a treatment depends on a reactor having run recently and near enough. India makes its own, in a research reactor rather than a dedicated one.

• Molybdenum-99, iodine-131 and lutetium-177 are about 90 per cent of nuclear medicine use, and are made in the Dhruva reactor.
• An Isotope Production Reactor is expected around 2035.

Prelims

Mutation breeding exposes seeds to radiation to create changes within the crop's own genome, and the breeder then selects the plants worth keeping. Nothing is brought in from another organism, which is what separates it from a transgenic crop.

• Radiation has released 72 crop varieties, 17 of them in groundnut and 10 in rice.

See also: Gamma irradiation of food

Prelims

The same radiation does a duller and wider job in a gamma plant, where a measured dose kills what spoils food and what infests it. The food is exposed to the source and taken away again, and does not become radioactive itself.

• India has 42 food irradiation facilities, in both the government and the private sector.
• A later release, of 28 August 2026, gives 40: that is the count reached in 2025, repeated.

Prelims and Mains

Enrichment raises the share of uranium-235 to 3 to 5 per cent for fuel and above 90 per cent for a weapon, using the same centrifuges. The Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency allows inspections at short notice.