India's first nuclear test, conducted at Pokhran in 1974, was given which code name?
- A.Operation Shakti
- B.Smiling Buddha
- C.Operation Vijay
- D.Project Dhruva
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Smiling Buddha. The test was carried out in the desert at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974 and was described by India as a peaceful nuclear explosion; Raja Ramanna led the team. Option A is wrong because Operation Shakti is the name of the second round of tests, the five devices fired on 11 and 13 May 1998 at the same range, after which India declared itself a nuclear weapon state. Option C is wrong because Operation Vijay is the name given to the military operation in Kargil in 1999, which has nothing to do with the nuclear tests. Option D is wrong because Dhruva is a research reactor at Trombay that began working in 1985, not a test. Note also that National Technology Day on 11 May marks the 1998 tests, not the 1974 one.
Read the full article: Nuclear Programme of India: Three Stages and Reactors
Practice Questions
View allWhere was India's first nuclear power plant set up?
- A.Tarapur
- B.Kudankulam
- C.Kaiga
- D.Rawatbhata
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The Tarapur Atomic Power Station in Maharashtra was commissioned in 1969 with American assistance and was the first nuclear power station in India as well as in Asia; its first two units are boiling water reactors, a design used nowhere else in the country.
Read the full explanation →In the Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor, a natural uranium fuelled reactor, the function of moderator and coolant is performed by:
- A.heavy water
- B.light water
- C.carbon dioxide
- D.sodium
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The CANDU design, from which India's pressurised heavy water reactors descend, burns natural uranium, and natural uranium contains only about seven parts in a thousand of the fissile isotope uranium 235.
Read the full explanation →The coolant used in a boiling water reactor is:
- A.carbon dioxide
- B.pressurised water
- C.a mixture of water and steam
- D.liquid metal
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In a boiling water reactor, the design used at Tarapur, ordinary water is allowed to boil inside the reactor vessel itself, so the coolant leaving the core is a mixture of water and steam; the steam is separated at the top and driven straight to the turbine, without the separate…
Read the full explanation →Who is regarded as the father of the Indian nuclear programme?
- A.Vikram Sarabhai
- B.Homi Jehangir Bhabha
- C.Raja Ramanna
- D.A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
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Bhabha founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945, became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, drew up the three stage plan built around India's thorium, and led the establishment at Trombay that was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre after his death in 1966.
Read the full explanation →Apsara, the first nuclear research reactor in Asia, became critical in 1956 at which place?
- A.Kalpakkam
- B.Trombay
- C.Rawatbhata
- D.Tarapur
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Apsara went critical at Trombay near Mumbai on 4 August 1956 and was the first nuclear research reactor not only in India but in the whole of Asia; the CIRUS reactor of 1960 and the Dhruva reactor of 1985 were built at the same site, which is today the Bhabha…
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