The fusion energy programme in India has steadily evolved over the past few decades. Mention India's contributions to the international fusion energy project - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). What will be the implications of the success of this project for the future of global energy?

Use India's in-kind ITER contributions and its domestic tokamaks for the first part, and ITER's Q = 10 goal and limits for the implications.

• India became ITER's seventh full member in December 2005 and supplies about 10% in kind, including L&T's 3,850-tonne cryostat.
• India's ADITYA tokamak began in 1989 and was upgraded as ADITYA-U in 2017; IPR Gandhinagar also runs SST-1.
• ITER targets 500 MW from 50 MW of heating (Q = 10) but will not generate electricity; D-T operation is planned for 2039.

• A tokamak confines plasma in a ring-shaped vacuum chamber using magnetic fields from external coils and a current driven through the plasma.
• Deuterium-tritium fusion releases 17.6 MeV per reaction, about 80% of it carried by the neutron.
• ITER, at Cadarache in France, has seven members including India, which joined in December 2005; it aims for a gain of Q = 10 but will not generate electricity.