Friday, October 30, 2009

SIZZLE OR FIZZLE: THE INDIAN NUCLEAR TEST SOAP OPERA

New Paper:

SIZZLE OR FIZZLE: THE INDIAN NUCLEAR TEST SOAP OPERA
Shiv Sastry

Paper No. SRRP04010901, Security Research Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, October 2009.

Comment Away!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe Dr. Santhanam himself made a comment about the safety limits on the yield, right after May 11. Someone had posted that on BRF and N^3 quoted it and had a :ROTFL about it, causing further grief to the ***ku type crowd.

That would be a great addition to the list of statements.

Anonymous said...

For clarity add standard units (joules) in Yield definition.. 1Kt = 1 KT roughly equivalent to 1000 tons of TNT - 4.184 trillion joules.

Very nice article

Anonymous said...

For clarity add in definition of yield KT - roughly equivalent to 1000 tons of TNT = 4.184 trillion joules.

Anonymous said...

It would help a LOT IF Dr. Shiv could provide URLs in the "Commentary" section every time he mentions someone stated something.

Very good article, could be presented far better.

Anonymous said...

Very good paper by the good doctor. However, there are a few typos and language errors that need to be looked at

1. The last line on Pg.1: "S1, S2 and S3 were conducted" should be changed to "S1, S2 and S3 were tested"

2. On Pg.2, the names of the sizzle and fizzle groups need to be consistent. For Eg. Dr. Kakodkar should be referred to as Dr. Anil Kakodkar since Dr. Raja Ramanna's full name has been used. The same goes for Dr. Sikka, Dr. R Chidambaram, Dr. B.K. Subbarao, etc. Also, it might not be right to refer to Shri Kalam as "Dr."

Also, it is very interesting to see Ref. 5 say this: "all the devices tested in Pokhran-II were designed as weapons." Perhaps Dr. Badri-Maharaj would like to comment on this.

Gagan said...

My take on the issue of the success (or lack of) of the S1 TN.

That test failed, it seems clear from what we have heard both in public and in private.

The fact is that the government of the time when the test was conducted, as is the government of the day, are complicit in maintaining the veil of success. There can be no doubt that the powers that be don't understand the real issues involved that the jingos feel so agitated about. In fact the powers that be know even more, yet maintain the posture that they maintain.

KS is washing dirty linen in public, I think either the establishment is revolting against GoI / MMS if they feel that MMS is going to sign onto something that the establishment doesn't want
OR
Shri MMS and the establishment are playing a smokes and mirror game to send a message to massa to not push the issue.

In due course, several things will get revealed wrt the Indian nuclear weapons program that will make jingos happy, for now we must all wait. A hint was given by RC when he stated that research has gone ahead.

Anonymous said...

A whistleblower is always treated with scorn by the establishment, mocked as a liar by the rest of the public who dislike him for shaking them from their stupor, and the educated "elite" who profess to know about things tut tut about evidence and proof - without caring that if the person provides more proof he may end up in prison, under a draconian OSA.

Thats the case of KSanthanam, whose service will not be recognised.