Close X
Sunday, November 24, 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

    Janmashtami Celebrated With Fervour In Delhi

    Janmashtami Celebrated With Fervour In Delhi
    Delhi was gripped by Janmashtami fervour on Saturday, as the birthday celebrations of the much-loved Hindu deity Lord Krishna began with kirtans (religious songs) at homes and temples.

    Janmashtami Celebrated With Fervour In Delhi

    Panjab University Students Favour Banning Of Cars On Campus

    Panjab University Students Favour Banning Of Cars On Campus
    Students from Panjab University campus have voted in favour of banning entry of cars and other four wheelers in and around the academic areas of the university.

    Panjab University Students Favour Banning Of Cars On Campus

    Syed Ali Geelani Lauds Pakistan's Stand On Kashmir, Reveals Secret Letter

    Syed Ali Geelani Lauds Pakistan's Stand On Kashmir, Reveals Secret Letter
    Geelani expressed his views in a confidential letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, handed over by a three-member Hurriyat delegation to Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit in New Delhi on September 2.

    Syed Ali Geelani Lauds Pakistan's Stand On Kashmir, Reveals Secret Letter

    No Solution Yet On OROP, Talks Stuck Over Pension Revision

    No Solution Yet On OROP, Talks Stuck Over Pension Revision
    The stalemate over implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme continued on Thursday over the review period for pensions, as the protest by ex-servicemen entered its 81st day.

    No Solution Yet On OROP, Talks Stuck Over Pension Revision

    Uber Rape: Indian Woman, 26, Withdraws US Case

    Uber Rape: Indian Woman, 26, Withdraws US Case
    The 26-year-old woman filed her lawsuit in January in the US, about a month after she was allegedly raped and assaulted on a Uber ride in Delhi.

    Uber Rape: Indian Woman, 26, Withdraws US Case

    Zakir Hussain And Hariharan To Perform In US

    Zakir Hussain And Hariharan To Perform In US
    The two renowned musicians will perform several shows during their Hazir USA Tour 2015. 

    Zakir Hussain And Hariharan To Perform In US