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Kakodkar says no more nuclear tests required

MUMBAI: “India does not need to carry any more nuclear tests,” Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar said here on Wednesday in the backdrop of the controversy over whether the 1998 Pokhran thermonuclear explosion was a fizzle.

Joining issue with an ex-Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist K. Santhanam who claimed that Pokhran-II was not a full success and that a few more nuclear tests were required, Dr. Kakodkar said the country had strong simulation capability and additional tests were not required.

“We have enough data”

“We have enough data. We have comprehensive simulation capability and therefore there is no need for any more tests,” Dr. Kakodkar told PTI days after Mr. Santhanam ignited a controversy that Pokhran-II was a fizzle since the thermonuclear explosion did not give the desired yield. “We are very confident about the simulation capability.”

Already validated

Indian nuclear scientists had already validated and benchmarked the validated tool of the three-dimensional simulation for earth motion and displacement data collected following Pokhran II tests in 1998, he said.

“There is no need for a series of tests to validate the yield since the tool and also observations are available,” he said, adding that it was published in the international journal Nuclear Technology in 2006 four years after its communication from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

Measurements done

Dr. Kakodkar said BARC scientists had done the measurements meticulously and large number of diverse instrumentations was used using four independent measurements — seismic, large tele-seismic, accurate measurements at Gauribidinur seismic measurement site; radiochemical samples estimation done by different groups; specific evidence of fusion reaction and 3-dimensional simulation of motion of earth and displacement. — PTI

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