WATERLOO, Ontario — Three recent events reopen the debate on the wisdom of India's nuclear tests in 1998, as judged from within the narrow framework of its own interests. Or rather, they confirm the folly of the tests:
• K. Santhanam, director of the 1998 test site preparations, has claimed that the hydrogen bomb tests yielded less than half the amount of projected destructive energy: 15 to 20kt, not 45kt. His claims have been rejected by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former President Abdul Kalam, the then scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defense, and Brajesh Mishra, the BJP Government's national security adviser.
The claims have been backed by some influential heavyweights, including P.K. Iyengar, former chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, and they are broadly in accordance with the conclusions of most disinterested international observers who analyzed the test data at the time. The reason for his revelation may be to put pressure on the government to conduct further tests for validating the design of India's hydrogen bomb, before the window is closed if the Obama administration ratifies the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and pressures remaining holdouts to follow.