In a development that is bound to see angry reactions from Pakistan and China, a report has claimed that India is developing the Asian subcontinent's largest military-run complex for nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons and aircraft-testing facilities in the south Indian state of Karnataka.
The report published in the Washington-based magazine Foreign Policy claims that it has information that, at the facility, which is expected to completed by 2017, India plans to enrich uranium fuel for making new hydrogen bomb and this in turn will substantially increase its nuclear arsenal.
The facility, being built in Challakere (200 km from Bengaluru) in Chitradurga district, upon completion will "expand the government's nuclear research, to produce fuel for India's nuclear reactors, and to help power the country's fleet of new submarines" the report said.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) are two agencies involved in the construction of the military complex in Challakere.
Western analysts, speaking on condition of anonymity told Foreign Policy that while the construction of nuclear complex is still underway, India has been making preparations for enrichment for the last four years at its Rare Materials Plant, a top-secret site location near Mysore.
Satellite images of the top-secret nuclear complex in Mysore have revealed the presence of a "nuclear enrichment complex that is already feeding India's weapons program and, some Western analysts maintain, laying the groundwork for a more ambitious hydrogen bomb project," the Foreign Policy investigative report claimed.
