Pokhran II was a success: Kakodkar India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Rejecting claims made by former Defence research and development Organisation (DRDO) chief K. Santanam that the Pokhran II were partially successful, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Anil Kakodkar said tests were fully successful. Addressing a press conference along with the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India R. Chidambaram, Kakodkar claimed that Operation Shakti conducted in May 1998 at the Pokhran testing range in Rajasthan, gave the country nuclear deterrence capability of upto 200 kilotons. He also added that the controversies surrounding the success of the Pokhran tests was unnecessary. "The May1998 tests were fully successful and achieved all their objectives. And that has given us the capability to build to deterrence based on both fission and thermonuclear weapon systems with the yields ranging from the smallest all the way up to 200 kilotons," Kakodkar said. Kakodkar also said that India had declared a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests after Pokhran II and that there was no need to rethink the decision. "After the test the government declared a moratorium and I see no reason nothing has changed to change that status. The third thing is that we are within the parameters in the test. It is quite possible for us to protect our interests fully," he said. Regarding the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Kakodkar said it was a political matter. "Now as far as the CTBT is concerned, that's the larger political issue, and obviously a call will be taken when the time comes," said Kakodkar. Kakodkar said the scientists developed special 3D software, besides other instruments, to record the three-dimensional stimulation of the movement and deformation of surrounding earth during the experiments.