INDIA: GOVERNMENT RELEASE PICTURES OF RECENT NUCLEAR TESTS

(17 May 1998) English/Nat
The Indian government on Sunday released pictures of the nuclear tests it carried out last week.
India declared itself capable of making a bomb after the five underground tests, which set off a storm of international criticism.
The government's top nuclear scientist involved in the tests said the tests had validated India's capability to design nuclear weapons of different applications and delivery systems.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told reporters India was now working on perfecting missiles to carry the nuclear weapons it was able to produce.
India put its top nuclear scientist on show on Sunday, to explain the point of its atomic tests.
Abdul Kalam was flanked by three other top scientists who conceived and executed the nuclear explosions within a month of receiving orders from the government.
The news conference included a government-released video showing pictures of tests carried out on May 11th.
Details of all five tests undertaken in the testing range in the Thar desert - three on May 11th and two on May 13th - were released.
Officials said the most powerful explosion was from a thermonuclear device which had a yield equivalent to 45 kilotons of T-N-T.
The second came from a fission device with a yield of 15 kilotons, and the other three had yields of less than a kiloton each.
Kalam defended India's right to carry out the tests in the interests of national security.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"In Indian history, at no time have you seen - I will ask all of you - two-thousand-five-hundred (2500) years, at any time in Indian history have we invaded any country, but who else has come, who else - so many countries have invaded us the last two-thousand-five-hundred years. So our work, what we are doing for self, that is, about national security."
SUPER CAPTION: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Indian Government's Top nuclear scientist
Abdul Kalam told reporters that India was working to increase the range of its Agni missile.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"If needed it can be made in numbers. Now the Agni - we have next version, Agni version, government approved... it is an advanced stage of development."
SUPER CAPTION: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Indian Government's Top nuclear scientist
Agni, or Fire, is believed to have a range of 2,480 kilometres (1,550 miles), enough to reach Shanghai or Beijing in China, the country against which India says it needs a nuclear defence.
Apart from Agni, India has also tested a short-range ballistic missile, Prithvi, or Earth, which can target Pakistani cities within 150 kilometres (95 miles).
India says China has shared its nuclear weapons technology with Pakistan, the nation with which India has fought in three wars since 1948 and still engages in frequent border skirmishes.
The Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub said on Sunday said his country had decided to go ahead with testing a nuclear device in response to the tests.
India's nuclear tests have set off a storm of international criticism.
But Kalam said India's nuclear research programme would not be affected by the tough sanctions imposed by the United States, Japan and Germany.

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