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Kalam wants laser-based anti-nuke systems

Y Bala Murali Krishna in New Delhi

The architect of Indian missiles programme Dr A P J Abdul Kalam today called for development of laser-based systems capable of neutralising deadly nuclear and chemical weapons.

Dr Kalam, who recently assumed charge as the principal scientific advisor, told scientists that the country should take the lead in developing such powerful programmes. He was speaking at a three-day international conference on ''laser materials and devices'' organised for the first time in the country by the Defence Science Centre, recently renamed as the Laser Science and Technology Centre.

Dr Kalam said the country's laser technology programme had attracted the technology denial regime which, however, had proven beneficial with Indian scientists managing to convert adversity into advantage.

He said India was no longer afraid of technology denials as the country had the inherent capability to develop on its own. Laser had potential military applications in the missiles programme, especially in anti-ballistic missiles and directed energy weapons which moved with the speed of light being free from ''gravitational limits, Newtonian laws and aerodynamics,'' he said.

The technology in this crucial aspect of making solid state dioded lasers was limited, Dr Kalam said. ''As a missiles man, I have the ambition to neutralise nuclear weapons, which of late, have become status symbols, with Russia and the United States possessing tens of thousands of such warheads each,'' he added.

Referring to availability of 60 to 70 tonnes of chemical weapons with investment made in the programme by certain countries running into billions of dollars, Dr Kalam said high-tech laser devices would go a long way in nullifying their effects.

''The scientists have a great responsibility to find solutions to the menace of these destructive weapons,'' he said.

Dr Kalam added that the spectroscopy of lasers had opened up new vistas in laser material development by using gases, chemicals and amorphous substances with intense radiation wavelengths having elaborate commercial, industrial, civil and defence applications. These should be explored to the optimum.

UNI

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