This just crossed the wire-India claims capability to produce 200KT Bomb.
David and all:
This just came over the wire a few minutes ago,can't vouch for the veracity of the claim but sounded interesting.See what you make of it particularly the technical aspects of the claim.
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Friday May 22 5:14 PM EDT
India says it can produce 200-kiloton bomb
By John Chalmers.
NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - Atomic Energy Commission chairman R. Chidambaram was quoted on Friday as saying that India could produce a 200-kiloton nuclear bomb after last week conducting a hydrogen bomb test.
The Press Trust of India said Chidambaram told state-controlled broadcaster Doordarshan in a television interview to be broadcast on Sunday that a test device of lower yield was used to avoid possible damage to buildings in areas neighboring the site.
A 200-kiloton bomb would have an explosive power equivalent to 200,000 tons of TNT. The bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War Two was 15 kilotons -- equal to 15,000 tons of TNT.
India tested five nuclear devices last week, its first in 24 years, triggering outrage across the globe. The United States and some other countries imposed sanctions on New Delhi and arch-foe Pakistan said it would conduct tests of its own. PTI said one of the devices was of 45 kiloton.
Chidambaram said that there would be more breakthroughs in the reactor technology and 500-megawatt pressurized heavy water reactors and fast breeder reactors were on the anvil.
He said since India's first nuclear explosion in 1974 the nuclear program had been constantly upgraded in areas of explosive ballistics, high-pressure physics, neutron physics, neutron kinetics and secondary physics for the thermonuclear field.
India has put its diplomacy into high gear to cool tensions over its nuclear tests and a barrage of feisty exchanges with Pakistan, China and the United States.
In a move local media described as damage limitation, the government held a news conference late on Thursday to stress its commitment to good relations with neighbors and readiness for talks with world powers to formalize a new moratorium on tests.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee assured Russian President Boris Yeltsin by telephone that New Delhi had conducted its tests for security rather than aggression and that no more were planned.
PTI reported that India's ambassador to the United States, Naresh Chandra, was meeting senior U.S. officials seeking to revive dialogue between the two countries.
A senior government official denied that there had been a change of tack. He said the news conference was part of a policy of openness with the media and it was Yeltsin who had called Vajpayee and there was nothing unusual about the envoy to Washington meeting top-level officials.
"The diplomatic initiative was there from day one of the blasts," he said. "We have been saying that India seeks peace, is not interested in an arms race and wanted to ensure security."
India tested five nuclear devices last week, its first in 24 years, triggering a storm of global outrage. The United States and some other countries imposed sanctions on New Delhi and arch-foe Pakistan said it would conduct tests of its own.
Earlier this week, Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani had said Pakistan should "realize the new geostrategic situation" and warned that India would take a new, proactive stand on militancy on its soil.
On Thursday the government issued a sternly worded statement that accused Pakistan of border attacks to mask the movement of militants into the strife-torn Kashmir valley.
A senior minister said that while New Delhi wanted peace, it was capable of fighting Pakistan on any battleground.
But a few hours later, Vajpayee's principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra, told reporters emphatically: "There is no question of a war with Pakistan. We are not going for a war with Pakistan."
India accuses Pakistan, with which it has gone to war three times since independence in 1947, of arming and training Islamic guerrillas in Kashmir. But Islamabad says it gives separatists only political and diplomatic support.
More than a dozen militant groups are fighting for Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan. India controls two-thirds of the region and Pakistan the rest.
Mishra said New Delhi was waiting for a response from Islamabad to its proposal for a resumption of their deadlocked talks.
But Pakistan's foreign minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, told an Indian television channel that while Islamabad was interested in resuming dialogue, it would be a futile exercise.
"India has sucked us in Pakistan into a headlong arms race," he said.
The Indian Express said in an editorial on Friday that "at least half a dozen voices" were speaking at cross-purposes on India's foreign policy at a time when a coherent, unified voice was more necessary than ever.
"The nation has savored its nuclear triumph long enough. Now the time has come to use it wisely," it said.
"If the first step towards doing this is to moderate the chest-thumping and come down to earth, the next one is to exploit this demonstration of India's nuclear capability to create stability in the region, rather than instability."
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