Nuclear tests at Pokhran
Pokhran Test Range, Rajasthan
India sets off a "peaceful nuclear explosion" on 18 May 1974, then five devices on 11 and 13 May 1998, and declares itself a nuclear weapon state.
Both series were fired underground in the Thar desert, north-west of Pokhran town. The 1974 shot, code-named Smiling Buddha, was called peaceful. The 1998 series, Shakti, was followed by a voluntary moratorium on further tests, and a doctrine of no first use was adopted in 2003. Pakistan tested in Baluchistan on 28 and 30 May 1998, in the Chagai hills and then the Kharan desert.
The yield claimed for the 1998 thermonuclear device has been disputed by some Indian and foreign scientists. The tests brought sanctions and, a decade later, the 2008 civil nuclear agreement with the United States.
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