Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as http://parallelspirals.blogspot.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on December 31, 2010 as per the time stamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.
Tonight engineers working at the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) will begin work on decommissioning the 50 year old CIRUS nuclear reactor. CIRUS, short for the (Canada India Research United States) is named thus because it uses a Canada-supplied reactor and US supplied hard water for moderating the nuclear fission process.
On the day of the GSLV launch, I saw a snippet of an interview with eminent nuclear scientist, Raja Ramana on the CIRUS where he talked about how the Canadians thought that India could not develop its own nuclear fuel but which they did. CIRUS also provided the plutonium used for India’s first nuclear test in Pokhran in 1974.
Parallel Spirals 