The names of Buddha and Shakti, both sacred in India, have been
borrowed for the most destructive of man's endeavours, creating
a nuclear bomb. And, says Adrian Glamorgan, Australia has now
dealt itself directly into the high stakes game of Indian
nuclear politics. "Smiling Buddha" was tested on Gautama
Buddha's birthday, 1974, witnessed by the Indian PM Indira
Gandhi herself. Using Canadian uranium, the underground nuclear
bomb yielded about half the destructive energy unleashed at
Hiroshima. It was the first nuclear device to be tested by a
non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. India had been
heavily involved in developing the 1968 Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT), yet did not sign it. Essentially,
the NPT is a promise: non-nuclear nations will stay non-nuclear
and, in return, the nuclear weapons countries promise to disarm
- eventually. But India had defied world opinion by crossing the
line and joining the nuclear weapons club. Unsurprisingly,
Pakistan did not consider the Indian governme