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Fusion, radiation applications and nuclear governance

Atomic energy beyond power stations, and its governance: fusion research, radioisotopes and radiation in medicine, farming and food, the nuclear regulator, and international safeguards and treaties. Prelims has asked about India's membership of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and why some Indian reactors are under international safeguards.

UPSC has asked

  • Prelims 2020: why some Indian nuclear reactors are under international safeguards
  • Prelims 2016: India's membership of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

Medical radioisotopes

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Prelims

Medical radioisotopes are the radioactive isotopes nuclear medicine uses for scans and treatment, and India makes its own in a research reactor rather than a dedicated one.

  • They decay in hours or days, so nuclear medicine cannot stockpile them and depends on a reactor having run recently and near enough.
  • 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.

What changed

  1. 30 Jul 2026BriefA dedicated Isotope Production Reactor is being built at Visakhapatnam to make India self reliant in medical isotopes. Indigenous products include lutetium-177 therapy for prostate cancer and yttrium-90 glass microspheres for liver tumours. PIB, 30 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICAL AND AGRICULTURAL SECTORS (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 29 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NATIONAL NUCLEAR MEDICINE EXPANSION PROGRAMME (opens in a new tab)

Radiation in agriculture: mutation breeding and food irradiation

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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.
  • In a gamma plant a measured dose of the same radiation 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.

What changed

  1. 30 Jul 2026BriefSeventy two crop varieties bred through radiation induced mutation have been released. PIB, 30 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICAL AND AGRICULTURAL SECTORS (opens in a new tab)

See also: Herbicide tolerant mustard hybrids

Downblending enriched uranium

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Prelims and Mains

Downblending, the reverse of enrichment, mixes enriched uranium with natural or depleted uranium to below 5 per cent uranium 235, lengthening breakout time.

  • Natural uranium is 0.72 per cent fissile uranium 235.
  • The product is reconverted to uranium dioxide, which cannot be enriched directly, and verified by the IAEA.

What changed

  1. 19 Jun 2026BriefThe US and Iran memorandum of understanding to end the war commits Iran never to develop a nuclear bomb in return for sanctions relief. Its paragraph 8 sets on site downblending of Iran's enriched stockpile under IAEA supervision as the minimum method. The Hindu, 19 Jun 2026: What is downblending, the process at the heart of Trump's Iran agreement? (opens in a new tab)

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