Aditi Verma

MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering

The Indian nuclear program, while building the second reactor of a two-unit pressurized heavy water nuclear plant of Canadian design, found itself excluded from global nuclear supply chains and confronted with the task of completing a half-finished reactor following its nuclear test in 1974. This talk is the story of how Indian scientists, engineers and technicians completed the half-finished reactor, and redesigned and built subsequent ones. Aditi will also explore some implications of the development of nuclear technology in India for the control and industrial development of complex, but dual use systems. This work is based on semi-structured interviews with reactor equipment manufacturing companies and oral histories of current and former scientists, engineers and policy-makers of the Indian nuclear program.