ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Chidambaram dismisses doubts about N-potential

Reiterating that India is a nuclear weapon state, Dr R Chidambaram, chief designer of the Pokhran II nuclear tests today refuted claim of "so-called experts" questioning the yield of the nuclear tests conducted at Pokhran last year.

The set of five nuclear tests was conducted at the Pokhran range in Rajasthan on May 11 and 13 last year.

He said that there was hardly any reference to India's nuclear tests at the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference that concluded earlier this month, implying that the world knew that India was a nuclear weapon state.

Dr Chidambaram, who is the Atomic Energy Commission chairman, was addressing scientists and technocrats on the occasion of 90th birth anniversary of Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, father of the country's nuclear programme.

''Though most seismic specialists from abroad have endorsed the success of the tests, there are sporadic attempts by one small group of so-called experts to question the yield of our tests," he said.

''I am not sure whether this reflects deliberate disinformation or honest incompetence," Dr Chidambaram said, adding that scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre had estimated the yields from seismic and radioactive measurements, and from analyses of data from other close-in measurements.

"These have confirmed that initially declared results from all the devices, and a good deal of these measurements have been published in the BARC newsletter and Current Science," he said.

Tell us what you think of this report