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Scientists come together to protest against nuclear tests

About 75 scientists in Madras and elsewhere in the country today expressed their deep dismay and unhappiness over the conduct of five nuclear tests at the Pokhran range in Rajasthan on May 11 and 13.

Interestingly, a majority of the scientists were from the Madras-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Bombay-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Calcutta-based Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Kalpakkam-based Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research -- all under the control of the Department of Atomic Energy.

In a joint statement, they said the tests were bound to vitiate the already-tense atmosphere in South Asia and trigger off an arms race in the region.

"The Government of India has adopted the same cynical language as the nuclear weapon powers by claiming that these tests will contribute to disarmament," they regretted.

The scientists lamented that the tests had undone the consistent position taken hitherto by India in favour of nuclear disarmament.

The scientists wondered as to what immediate threat to the national security had "forced" the country to go in for the tests, especially when the people's needs in the fields of education, health, infrastructure and industrial development had assumed prime importance.

"We stand firmly by the long-tradition of eminent scientists who have consistently argued against the induction of nuclear weapons. The horrors of nuclear war cannot be forgotten and diminish whatever pride we feel in science and technology," they said.

The scientists said the statement was circulated by e-mail across the country and world, and about 75 Indian scientists living abroad also signed the statement at the web-site.

The scientists were from the SPIC Mathematical Institute in Madras, the Institute of Physics at Bhubaneswar, the Indian Institutes of Technology at Bombay, Delhi Madras and Kharagpur, University of Pune, the Centre for Theoretical Studies, the Aeronautical Development Agency at Bangalore, S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, and Surendranath College at Calcutta, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Syracuse University at the United States, Koln University at Germany, University Federal Fluminense and University of Sao Paulo at Brazil, National Central University at Taiwan and Karolinksa Institute, Linkoping University and Chalmers University of Technology at Sweden.

UNI

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