Powerful military nations’ intelligence agencies, specially of the US, are keeping a close look to ensure that ‘Buddha’ doesn’t surprise them with a ‘third smile’ in India.
India’s first nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1974 were codenamed ‘The Buddha is smiling.’ Like the 1974’s, the 1998 nuclear tests in Pokhran were also carried out on Buddha Purnima, thus earning an “unofficial name” as ‘The Buddha is still smiling.”
This had embarrassed the American intelligence community. For long, the US administration was confident that India would not dare to carry out nuclear tests without its knowledge. It is said that Washington had forced the Narasimha Rao govrnment to abandon nuclear tests at the last minute.
confirming that foreign spy agencies’ have stepped up interest in the country’s nuclear and space establishments, a key Intelligence Bureau officer said, “The military Powers, specially the US, have been upset since 1998 as the Pokhran-II nuclear tests took them by surprise. They don’t want Buddha to smile again without their knowledge.”
Among the various American intelligence agencies, National Security Agency (NSA), set up on November 1, 1952, is highly active on the India front. Known as “America’s codemakers and codebreakers,” NSA is one of the most secret (and secretive) members of the US intelligence community.
It collects data mainly through signals intelligence (SIGINT) from space (space telephone call monitoring). For “human resources” it depends heavily on the CIA, American radio networks and academic institutions.
According to a recent report by
noted analysist B Raman, in the countries which covertly collaborate with
NSA, such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan
and Israel, the monitoring stations have been set up with the permission
of local governments.