47 years ago, India surprised the whole world by making the first nuclear test. India led the charisma under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.
While India's test called Indira Gandhi as a peaceful nuclear test, on the other hand, the US had stopped supply of nuclear materials and fuel to India. Read on this historical day.
Delayed test due to jeep
On May 18, all the preparations for the nuclear test had been completed. To track the blast, the scaffold was installed 5 km away. All the big military officers and scientists were keeping an eye on this scaffold. For the last investigation, it is decided to send Virendra Sethi, a scientist to the test site. After the investigation, the Jeep was not getting started at the test site. The time of the blast was fixed at 8 a.m.
The time was running out and when Jeep was not started, Sethi walked for two kilometers away to the control room. Due to its entire developments, the time of testing was extended to 5 minutes.
7 years hard work
A whole team was working on this top secret project for a long time. The team of 75 scientists and engineers worked very hard from 1967 to 1974 for 7 years. This project was commanded by BARC Director Dr. Raja Ramanna. Ramanna's team was also the APJ Abdul Kalam who led the team of Pokhran nuclear test in 1998.
When the green flag was received from Indira
While visiting Bhabha Atomic Research Center in 1972, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed scientists there to plant a plant for nuclear testing. But Gandhi's permission was verbal.
This entire operation was kept confidential until the day of the trial. Even the US could not find any information about it. The angry United States had imposed several types of ban on nuclear materials and fuels. In this hour of crisis, Soviet Russia cooperated with India.