Monalisa Joshi

Joined IDSA
November 2005
Research Interests
Weapons of Mass Destruction, Disarmament related issues, Biological and Chemical Weapons
Education
Phd in Disarmament Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Current Project
Biological Weapons
Background
Monalisa has a Bachelor’s Degree in Botany, Chemistry and Zoology and an MA in Modern History from Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur. She wrote her doctoral thesis at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (2007) on the technical and political dimensions of biological weapons as WMD. She was awarded the Rajasthan government state scholarship to pursue higher research at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Monalisa was selected as an alternate candidate for the pre-doctoral fellowship, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA), Harvard University, May 2005. Dr. Joshi has participated and presented papers at international conferences, including the 2nd Unconventional Weapons Meeting, held on 10 April 2006 at the University of Bradford, Bradford and the 3rd Workshop for Young Scholars from the Global South at the Graduate Institute of International Studies at Geneva from 5-9 November 2007.
Select Publications
“The 6th BTWC Review Conference: A Year Later,” Asian Strategic Review 2008, Forthcoming.
“Sixth BTWC Review Conference”, Conceptualized and prepared the Micro site, 8 December 2006.”
“The Interpretation of Biological and Chemical Terrorism: A Foucauldian Perspective,” Journal of the Indian Association for the Study of Australia[forthcoming]
“Rajasthan: Culture, Change, Globalization,” Rajasthan History Congress Journal, 10 December 2005.
“Biological Weapons and Evolving International Norms,” Journal of Peace Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, January-March 2005, pp. 33-53.
Other Publications
Associate Fellow
E-mail: mjoshi[at]idsa[dot]in
Phone: +91 11 2671 7983

Publication

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The Chlorine Gas Leak at Jamshedpur

On the afternoon of May 27, the people of Jamshedpur were caught unaware. They were exposed to a dense, pale green, pungent and poisonous gas, Chlorine. This gas had leaked from an unused cylinder lying in the Tata Motor’s water treatment plant for the past 10 years. By the next day, around 150 to 200 people had been hospitalised. The affected people also included company employees and their family members. So far no deaths have been reported.

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Verification and the BTWC

In the post Cold War world, the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) emerged as a usable tool. This usage reached a crescendo with the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis and the alleged existence of WMD in Iraq, which became the primary justification for the 2003 invasion of that country. The fear of WMD proliferation has generated grave concerns, given the increasing number and greater intensity of terrorist activities and their attempts to acquire WMD. Efforts to restrain the development and further spread of WMD have received greater focus in this environment of insecurity.