In an important development, the International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has chosen at least two chemical producing companies where they will be sending chemical engineers and chemists from African countries to get formal training in handling chemicals used for making chemical weapons. A team of OPCW visited two chemical units at Ankleshwar manufacturing chemicals used for manufacturing weapons on Friday. OPCW director, Kalimi Mworia from The Netherlands and joint director, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilisers, Government of India, KC Mishra were two of the members of the team. The members gave a presentation about the activities of OPCW which is a universal treaty that bans the development, production, acquisition, transfer, use and stockpile of all chemical weapons. The treaty called Chemical Weapon Council (CWC) puts all the countries on an equal footing. Countries having stockpiles of chemical weapons are required to declare and destroy them in a specified time-frame and those who produce and use chemicals that can be easily converted into chemical weapons have to be open and transparent about the use they put these chemicals to. While the OPCW delegates did not divulge any information about their visit and the decisions taken after a series of meetings with the chemical unit owners, those who were present in the meeting maintained that the local chemical units would play a pivotal role in training the chemical engineers. YP Saxena, secretary, Indian Chemical Council Gujarat told TOI, "CWC is focusing on developing and under-developed countries where there is a lack of information about misuse of chemicals by terrorist groups.' To meet the challenges, CWC has a plan to recruit young chemical engineers and chemists from African countries, who will be trained in Indian chemical plants. After successful training, they will work for CWC to fulfil its mission in creating awareness among the chemical industries in developing and undeveloped countries so that they ensure such chemicals do not fall into the wrong hands.' Heabuch Colours Pvt Ltd, president AG Chitre said, "We have accepted the CWC request.'