Close X
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
ADVT 
India

'India Is Building A Secret N-City In Karnataka'

Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Dec, 2015 01:13 PM
    India could "deeply unsettle" its neighbours Pakistan and China as it is building a secret facility in its southern Karnataka state to augment its nuclear power for civilian use and upgradation of its weapons, a foreign policy journal has reported.
     
    According to an exhaustive report published on December 16 in the international US magazine Foreign Policy, the work on the project in southern Karnataka began early in 2012.
     
    The 14-page report said tribal pastureland was blocked off with a barbed-wire fence at Challakere for “a project that experts say will be the subcontinent’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons- and aircraft-testing facilities when it’s completed, probably sometime in 2017”.
     
    The project’s primary aim was to expand the government’s nuclear research, to produce fuel for India’s nuclear reactors, and to help power the country’s fleet of new submarines, says the Foreign Policy journal.
     
    “But another, more controversial ambition, according to retired Indian government officials and independent experts in London and Washington, is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could be used in new hydrogen bombs, also known as thermonuclear weapons, substantially increasing the explosive force of those in its existing nuclear arsenal,” the report reads.
     
    New Delhi has never made public details of its nuclear arsenal, which it first developed in 1974, the magazine said.
     
    The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent agency, estimates that India already possesses between 90 and 110 nuclear weapons, as compared to neighbour Pakistan’s estimated stockpile of up to 120. China, which borders India to the north, has approximately 260 warheads.
     
    The report says that China and Pakistan would see the secret project as a provocation. “Experts say they might respond by ratcheting up their own nuclear firepower. Pakistan, in particular, considers itself a military rival, having engaged in four major conflicts with India, as well as frequent border skirmishes.”
     
     
    “I believe that India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against China,” Gary Samore, who served from 2009 to 2013 as the White House coordinator for arms control, was quoted by 'Foreign Policy' as saying. 
     
    Other than the Challakere project, Western monitoring agencies were keeping an eye on a similar nuclear facility near Mysuru, also in Karnataka.
     
    “However, Western knowledge about how India’s weapons are stored, transported, and protected, and how the radiological and fissile material that fuels them is guarded and warehoused -- the chain of custody -- remains rudimentary,” the report added.
     
    According to the magazine, a retired official who served inside the nuclear cell at the Indian prime minister’s office, the apex organisation that supervises the military nuclear programme, conceded that other uses besides submarines had been anticipated “for many years”. 
     
    He pointed to a “thermonuclear bomb programme” as “a beneficiary” and suggested India had had no choice but to “develop a new generation of more powerful megaton weapons” if it was to maintain “credible minimum deterrence”.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Ontario Schools Resume With Less Turmoil, But Some Labour Strife Remains

    Ontario Schools Resume With Less Turmoil, But Some Labour Strife Remains
    Ontario schools resume this week in a more stable state than when they closed in June amid the threat of massive teachers' strikes, but it will not be entirely problem-free with work-to-rule campaigns and controversy over a new sex-education curriculum lingering.

    Ontario Schools Resume With Less Turmoil, But Some Labour Strife Remains

    Is Modi Euphoria Over? Markets Decline To Level Last Seen When BJP Leader Won

    Is Modi Euphoria Over? Markets Decline To Level Last Seen When BJP Leader Won
    Monday's stock market decline marks a landmark of sorts for the Narendra Modi government. 

    Is Modi Euphoria Over? Markets Decline To Level Last Seen When BJP Leader Won

    Goa Girl Champ Who Doesn't Know She Quizzed Modi On Live TV

    Goa Girl Champ Who Doesn't Know She Quizzed Modi On Live TV
    The 16-year-old does not really know who the bearded, smiling man she spoke to on September 4 on live television really is.

    Goa Girl Champ Who Doesn't Know She Quizzed Modi On Live TV

    Grim Ending On Frigid River Averted Thanks To B.C. Police Dog Named Duke: RCMP

    Grim Ending On Frigid River Averted Thanks To B.C. Police Dog Named Duke: RCMP
    RCMP say a 26-year-old man was reported missing around noon Wednesday while visiting the Othello Tunnels near the community of Hope.

    Grim Ending On Frigid River Averted Thanks To B.C. Police Dog Named Duke: RCMP

    Indian Government Announces 'One Rank One Pension', Veterans Happy But Stir To Continue

    Indian Government Announces 'One Rank One Pension', Veterans Happy But Stir To Continue
    Putting an end to months of speculation, the government on Saturday announced it will be implementing 'One Rank One Pension' (OROP) for the armed forces.

    Indian Government Announces 'One Rank One Pension', Veterans Happy But Stir To Continue

    Mohan Nath Goswami, India's Real-Life Phantom Kills 10 Terrorists In 11 Days, Dies Fighting

    Mohan Nath Goswami, India's Real-Life Phantom Kills 10 Terrorists In 11 Days, Dies Fighting
    Special Forces commando of the Indian Army has created a unique history of valour and dedication to duty by eliminating 10 terrorists in 11 days before laying down his life in service of the nation in the Kashmir Valley

    Mohan Nath Goswami, India's Real-Life Phantom Kills 10 Terrorists In 11 Days, Dies Fighting