Word: primed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...story of how India revived the nuclear nightmare begins in December 1995. The government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is secretly readying an underground nuclear test when U.S. spy satellites orbiting over the Thar Desert in Rajasthan near the Pakistani border snap pictures of thick electric cables being installed in a hole at the Pokhran test site. The Clinton Administration leaks word of the preparations to the press, then dispatches a diplomatic team to confront the Indian government with the satellite photos. Rao is forced to abort the test...
...Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power, and the first thing Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee plans to do is carry out that canceled nuclear test. The B.J.P. has made nuclear assertion a cardinal plank of its India-first platform, and Vajpayee gives the go-ahead, but scientists tell him it will take a month. Before they can carry through, his government falls, after just 13 days in office...
...years later Vajpayee, 71, returns as Prime Minister. This time he rules in a coalition made up of fractious and contrary parties, 17 in all, that disagree on almost every issue except one: it is time to declare India a full nuclear power, not just an ambiguous "threshold" state. After demonstrating its manifest capability to build A-bombs in 1974, India has voluntarily practiced a form of nuclear "Don't ask, don't tell" for more than two decades. Vajpayee is determined to accomplish what nine previous governments have not dared since India detonated its first nuclear device under...
...Prime Minister makes no secret of his broad intentions. On taking office, he openly declares that India will adopt the B.J.P. election manifesto's promise to "exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons" into its national defense. Indian newspapers are full of stories predicting the B.J.P. government will take the next steps...
BELFAST: The ayes have it, British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Thursday in his bid to coax voters to deliver a resounding 'yes' on the Irish peace accord in Friday's referendum. TIME London bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand reports that anxiety over a "no" vote had increased after the initial euphoria over the deal gave way to mounting fear in the Protestant community -- spooked by the dire warnings of rejectionists -- that the early release of convicted IRA terrorists would set killers loose among them. Blair was at pains to reassure voters today to stress that parties committed to violence would...