‘Laughing Buddha’ That was the ‘code name’ of the first nuclear test conducted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1974. India’s second nuclear test conducted in 1998 under the leadership of AB Vajpayee was called Operation Shakti. India, by whatever name, has always been the ‘hot seat’ for nuclear weapons, along with its neighbor and nuclear-armed state, Pakistan. India faced sanctions even when it was tested twice. In response to the Pokhran-II tests on 11 and 13 May 1998, Pakistan itself conducted a nuclear test on 28 May. After that, then US President Bill Clinton described South Asia as the most dangerous region in the world. Both countries faced sanctions following the nuclear tests, but India successfully weathered them; Issues were resolved through discussion. Jaswant Singh, who was the foreign minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet, later commented that the experiment was conducted once morest ‘nuclear discrimination’. India has not yet signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Nuclear Test Ban Act (CTBT) brought by the West to control countries that do not have nuclear weapons. India’s policy of non-discrimination has been for decades, even as it advocates strongly for nuclear non-proliferation. The then Dr. The Manmohan Singh government was able to.
