Will the 'Buddha' smile again?

NEW DELHI: Powerful military nations''intelligence agencies, specially of the US, are keeping a close look to ensurethat ''Buddha'' doesn''t surprise them with a ''third smile'' inIndia.India''s first nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1974 were code-named''The Buddha is smiling.'' Like the 1974''s, the 1998 nuclear tests in Pokhran werealso carried out on Buddha Purnima, thus earning "unofficial name" as ''TheBuddha is still smiling."This had embarrassed the Americanintelligence community. For long, the US administration was confident that Indiawould not dare to carry out nuclear tests without its knowledge. Itis said that Washington had forced the Narasimha Rao government to abandonnuclear tests at the last minute.Confirming that foreign spyagencies'' have stepped up interest in the country''s nuclear and spaceestablishments, a key IB officer said, "The military powers, specially the US,have been upset since 1998 as the Pokhran-II nuclear tests took them bysurprise. They don''t want Buddha to smile again without theirknowledge."Among the various American intelligence agencies,National Security Agency (NSA), set up on November 1, 1952, is highly active onthe India front. Known as "America''s codemakers and codebreakers," NSA is one ofthe most secret (and secretive) members of the US intelligencecommunity.It collects data mainly through signals intelligence(SIGINT) from space (space telephone call monitoring). For "human resources" itdepends heavily on the CIA, American radio networks and academicinstitutions.According to a recent report by noted analysist BRaman, in the countries which covertly collaborate with NSA, such as the UK,Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan and Israel, the monitoringstations have been set up with the permission of localgovernments."Till 2003," says Raman, former additional secretary(retd), Cabinet secretariat, "the US state department was strongly opposingdeclassification of the fact that the NSA clandestinely collected SIGINT, as itcould embarrass these countries."Besides India, NSA also holdsinterests in China, Vietnam, North Korea and Pakistan.