News Desk: India is observing the 14th anniversary of the nuclear test Pokhran II today, which was carried out on May 11, 1998, to join the club of nuclear power nations like US, UK, Israel, France and Russia.


A few weeks later, Pakistan had demonstrated its own nuclear weapon capability to compete with India. Even Pakistan has not forgotten the significant date as it tested its Hatf III ballistic missile on the eve of the 14th anniversary of India’s Pokhran II nuclear.


Pokhran -II refers to the explosions of five nuclear devices, three on 11 May and two on 13 May 1998. The test was conducted at the Pokhran test range under the code name of Operation Shakti, for which India had to face various sanctions by the powerful nations like US.


Shakti was the codename of a thermonuclear device, which was exploded on May 11, 1998 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India.


The test was successful and the entire credit was given to technical personnel involved in the operation were Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Head of the DRDO), Dr. R Chidambaram (Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Atomic energy). They were the Chief Coordinators of the Project.


Apart from Kalam, other scientists of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) were also involved in the Project. They were Dr. Anil Kakodkar (Director of BARC), Dr. Satinder Kumar Sikka (Director; Thermonuclear Weapon Development), Dr. MS Ramkumar (Director of Nuclear Fuel and Automation Manufacturing Group; Director, Nuclear Component Manufacture), Dr. DD Sood (Director of Radiochemistry and Isotope Group; Director, Nuclear Materials Acquisition), Dr. SK Gupta (Solid State Physics and Spectroscopy Group; Director, Device Design & Assessment), Dr. G Govindraj (Associate Director of Electronic and Instrumentation Group; Director, Field Instrumentation), Dr. K Santhanam (Director, Test Site Preparations, DRDO), Dr. M Vasudev (Range Safety Officer, DRDO).


A total of five nuclear weapons were detonated during Operation Shakti. The three devices (Shakti I, II & III) were detonated simultaneously at 3:43:44.2 p.m. It was the largest seismic event in the world. After two days on May 13, the other two devices were detonated underground at 12.21 p.m. at Pokhran to claim India as the nuclear power nation.  


India had first signalled its nuclear power on May 18, 1974 with the test, which was described as a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE).

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