MUMBAI: R Chidambaram, ex-AEC chief and the architect of the 1998 Pokhran nuclear weapons tests, on Thursday rejected the demand for a peer review to assess the yield of the thermonuclear bomb saying the Pokhran-II data had already been subjected to several peer reviews.
In fact, Chidambaram said India had the capability to build fission and thermonuclear weapons with yields up to 200 kilotons. Trying to put a damper on the raging controversy on the yield of India’s H-bomb, Chidambaram said that due to ‘‘proliferation sensitivity, the design details of the thermonuclear device have not been made public’’.
‘‘Considering this, I do not think there is any need of a peer review. It’s an unnecessary controversy. Kakodkar and I are saddened that two of our colleagues are raising doubts about the yields,’’ he said at a press conference that was also attended by Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar and Barc director S Banerjee.
Chidambaram was responding to a demand made by former AEC chief P K Iyengar and former Barc director A N Prasad that there should be a peer review of the thermonuclear test. Iyengar and Prasad were subsequently supported by K Santhanam, a key player in the Pokhran test, who was the first to reveal on August 27, 2009, that the yield of the device was around 25kt and not 45kt as stated by Chidambaram and then scientific adviser A P J Abdul Kalam.
Santhanam, when contacted to respond to Chidambaram’s clarification, refused comment.
The thrust of the media briefing held at AEC headquarters in Colaba was that the May 1998 weapons tests were fully successful .
‘‘They have helped us build a nuclear deterrence of different yields. A great deal of further scientific and technical development work has taken place since May 1998. We have published as much data as possible without
releasing proliferation-sensitive information,’’ Chidambaram said.
Chidambaram said that yield measurements were based mainly on advanced seismology and radio chemistry. ‘‘Radio chemistry has been used in many areas,’’ he said.
Dismissing suggestions that computer simulation was no substitute for a real test, Kakodkar said that the biggest gain of these tests was in the area of computer simulation.
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