India, Dec. 1 -- The misuse of biological weapons by non-state actors is no longer a "distant possibility" and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) must be modernised as it has no compliance system or mechanism to track new scientific developments, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.

Jaishankar reiterated India's call for stronger compliance measures within the BWC, including verification designed for the contemporary era, and for systematic reviews of scientific and technological developments to ensure governance keeps pace with innovation. He was addressing a conference on 50 years of the BWC with the focus on strengthening biosecurity for the Global South.

India, he said, has an established record in backing the...