Current Arsenal and Estimates of Inventory
- In 2005, it was estimated that India had between 40 and 50 warheads.
- In November 2008, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that India has about 70 assembled nuclear warheads, with about 50 of them fully operational.
- A report by David Albright, published by the Institute for Science and International Security in 2000, estimated that India at end of 1999 had 310 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for 65 nuclear weapons. He also estimated that India had 4,200 kg of reactor grade plutonium which is enough to build 1,000 nuclear weapons. By the end of 2004, he estimates India had 445 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium which is enough for around 85 nuclear weapons, if 5 kg is required each.
- As of February 2011, the Federation of American Scientists estimated that India had a stockpile of 80-100 weapons.
- Former Research and Analysis Wing official J.K. Sinha, claimed that India is capable of producing 130 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium per year from six "unsafeguarded" reactors not included in the nuclear deal between India and the United States.
- On 24 July 2012, two U.S. scientists estimated that India has an arsenal of 80-100 nuclear weapons and has not converted its entire stockpile of 520 kg of weapon grade plutonium into weapons. They also stated that the construction of a second plutonium producing reactor at Vishakapatnam and commissioning of the fast breeder reactor near Kalpakkam would significantly increase India's plutonium production capacity.
Read more about this topic: India And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Famous quotes containing the words current, arsenal and/or estimates:
“You are the current of the frozen stream,
Shadow invisible, ambushed and vigilant flame.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The atom bomb was no “great decision.”... It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.”
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)