rediff.com: Poorna Vijay concludes: PTI

Participating in the wargames, 40,000 troops, 500 tanks and infantry combat vehicles and 120 warplanes criss-crossed hundreds of miles of Thar desert in Rajasthan to test survival techniques in nuclear, biological and chemical battle scenarios.

The exercise also trained troops in undertaking deep armoured thrusts involving self-contained battle groups consisting of armoured divisions, mechanised formations and their mobile artillery components.

The exercise, in four phases, was carried out in western Thar desert, 60 km away from the Ganganagar international border, Bhatinda, Jalandhar, Gurdaspur and Pokhran firing range.

An army spokesman said all mission objectives of the exercise had been accomplished. He, however, did not elaborate.

In Bangalore, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India A P J Abdul Kalam denied India was testing nuclear weapons during the exercise.

"Nobody is testing... it's only a training operation, we have put all sorts of ideas," Kalam told reporters.

On the possibility of a Pokhran III, Kalam said, "Not at all. The prime minister has said we have finished all tasks."

Responding to questions after delivering the talk, Nation's Journey of Two Decades (2000-2020) - Nation-Youth -Technology, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Pokhran II nuclear tests, he said India was developing some technology for low-intensity warfare.

"Low intensity warfare is going to be one of the ways of life in future and we have to contend with it," Kalam said.

Welcoming the government's move on opening up of the defence production sector to private industry and permitting 26 per cent FDI, he said the measure would lead to competition, cost cut-down and quality improvement.

"Indian R&D institutions and the public and private sectors will get integrated and it's good," he observed.

Kalam said, "A loop of villages in Madhya Pradesh and Kancheepuram are being connected by a 'ring road' to make rural areas attractive to investors, empower those villages and reverse the migration to urban places".

"We are trying to sell it (the idea) to the Planning Commission. We want to start in 100 places (to connect loop of villages) in three to four years. It needs heavy investment. Public and private sector have to pool in resources," he said.

Kalam, responding to a question from a member of the audience, refused to join the debate between the scientists and astrologers over the introduction of Vedic astrology in universities.

"The nation is bigger than individuals. No individual can be bigger than the nation. Let us work for the country," he said without elaborating. But having said that, he quipped: "I have not answered your question because I cannot answer that."

According to Kalam, India can become a developed country by 2020 from the present status of being a developing one "by sweat, hard work, creativity and performance, with youths playing a major role."

He emphasised the need to bring in multiple technologies and integrate them in various sectors including telemedicine, agriculture and communication.

"The government is making a major effort to take telemedicine to rural areas. Scientific education has become our focus and we are working on it on highest priority."

Kalam said India has met the challenge of economic and technological sanctions slapped on it by the developed world in the wake of Pokhran II only through self-sufficiency in food, self-reliance in space, nuclear and missile technologies and self-reliance by industries.

He felt there was a need to strengthen the IPR, protected resources (like biological and microbial) and creation of a Educational Development Finance Corporation.

With the removal of quantitative restrictions, the message for the conventional industries is that they have to be competitive and inject latest technologies to survive in the field, he added.


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