India can build N-bomb in days

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India can build N-bomb in days

Washington, Jan. 11: India's nuclear and missile programme is

indigenous but Pakistan still relies on assistance from China

and North Korea for its advanced defence systems, the

Pentagon has said.

 

New Delhi's ballistic missile programme is extensive and

indigenous while Islamabad "driven by its perceived need to

counter India's conventional superiority and nuclear capability"

receives aid from abroad, the Pentagon said in its annual

publication `Proliferation: Threat and Response'.

 

"During the last several years, Pakistan has received assistance

in the production of nuclear weapons and missiles from both

China and North Korea, which will help it attain goal of

self-sufficiency," it said.

 

However, Pakistan has less of a military production

infrastructure than India, and as a result were forced to depend

on outside support for its efforts for several years, it said.

 

The report said Pakistan, fearful of India's "regional and global

power aspirations" continued to seek close security ties with

China as a balance. New Delhi probably had a small stockpile of

nuclear weapon components and could assemble and deploy a

few nuclear weapons within a few days to a week, it said.

 

The future Indian defence budgets will include a focus on

investments for long-term military production and

self-sufficiency, including those for nuclear and missile forces, in

keeping with India's overall goal of achieving independence from

foreign suppliers, it said.

 

India has a capable cadre of scientific personnel and a nuclear

infrastructure, consisting of numerous research and

development centres, 11 nuclear power reactors, and facilities to

extract plutonium from spent fuel, the Pentagon report said. "With

this large nuclear infrastructure, India is capable of

manufacturing complete sets of components for

plutonium-based nuclear-weapons, " it said.

 

The United States has allowed the sale of faster computers to

India and other developing nations in South-east Asia and Africa

without prior review and decided to ease the restrictions which

proved ineffective in view of rapid progress of technology.

 

"The Clinton administration has permitted the sale of faster

computers to the so-called tier 3 countries because these

computers are so widely available that efforts to restrict their sale

out of proliferation concerns is useless," a White House release

said on Thursday.