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NUCLEAR ILLUSIONS
the washing of dirty linen in Public by scientists of our nuclear establishment aided by ourNSA whom one scientist called a babe in the nuclear woods, the criticism that our erudite former President Dr.Kalam had to face for having certified a dud exercise as a success ( refer column by Sudharshan in The New indian Express) has brought in to focus the decay in our nuclear establishment. It has become highly politicised as claimed by anyalst Braham Challaney. Dr.Homi Babha when he was chosen to head nuclear mission had the unique honor of having direct access to Pt.Nehru and he could circumvent parliamentary scrutiny of his expenses. This is not to doubt his integrity but non accountability is a serious crime. Later on Raja Ramanna of Pokhran-I fame ridiculed Morarjee Desai when he said Desai thought he knew more physics than him since he graduated earlier. the levels of arrogance of our nuclear scientists was complete when Dr Khakodkar was used by Dr.Manmohan Singh to defend Indo US nuclear ties which was signed without any debate in parliament. Dr.Iyenger and Prasad were the dissenting voices which were ignored. When Dr.Santhanam chose to blew the whistle on the fission device failure, all hell broke loose. NSA called him short of being mad and certified to the success of the fission device.
It all started when Vajpayee administration hustled through the Pokhran-II exercise. Narasimha Rao had already made all things ready for this second test which was called off at the last minute due to surveillance of US reconnaissance. All that was needed was to simply detonate the device. Scientists were called to expedite the process. An IB intercept informed that Pakistan is also ready to detonate atomic devices, then it was all hell. In order to take precedence over Pakistan, DAE went ahead with the fission and fusion exercises which for a brief while startled the world but since Pakistan also retaliated through its Islamic bomb the following day, the criticism was far too mild. BJP claimed a victory of sorts. Now Santhanam claims that Brajesh Mishra whose antecedents as nuclear physicist is doubtful in fact overruled dissent and took a voice vote to declare the tests as a success. The scientific establishment in the country has become a pawn in political games and this does not augur well for our country.
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