The Pokhran-II tests were a series of five nuclear bomb test explosions conducted by India at the Indian Army's Pokhran Test Range in May 1998. It was the second instance of nuclear testing conducted by India; the first test, code-named Smiling Buddha, was conducted in May 1974.
A cylindrical shaped nuclear bomb, Shakti I, prior to its detonation.
During the 1998 Indian general election, BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee promised to carry out nuclear tests.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam headed the team of scientists and engineers for the nuclear explosion.
The Thar Desert in the state of Rajasthan where the nuclear site, the Pokhran Test Range, is located.
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance, yield, and effects of nuclear weapons. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by different conditions, and how personnel, structures, and equipment are affected when subjected to nuclear explosions. However, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength. Many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status through a nuclear test.
The mushroom cloud from the Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test in 1954, the largest nuclear weapons test ever conducted by the United States
Subcritical experiment at the Nevada National Security Site
The Phoenix of Hiroshima (foreground) in Hong Kong Harbor in 1967, was involved in several famous anti-nuclear protest voyages against nuclear testing in the Pacific.
The first atomic test, "Trinity", took place on July 16, 1945.
