<P> Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had already gained much popularity and publicity after her successful military campaign against Pakistan in the 1971 war . The test caused an immediate revival of Indira Gandhi's popularity, which had flagged considerably from its high after the 1971 war . The overall popularity and image of the Congress Party was enhanced and the Congress Party was well received in the Indian Parliament . In 1975, Homi Sethna, a chemical engineer and the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AECI), Raja Ramanna of BARC, and Basanti Nagchaudhuri of DRDO, all were honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award . Five other project members received the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award . India consistently maintained that this was a peaceful nuclear bomb test and that it had no intentions of militarising its nuclear programme . However, according to independent monitors, this test was part of an accelerated Indian nuclear programme . In 1997 Raja Ramanna, speaking to the Press Trust of India, maintained: </P> <P> The Pokhran test was a bomb, I can tell you now...An explosion is an explosion, a gun is a gun, whether you shoot at someone or shoot at the ground...I just want to make clear that the test was not all that peaceful . </P> <P> While India continued to state that the test was for peaceful purposes, it encountered opposition from many quarters . The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was formed in reaction to the Indian tests to check international nuclear proliferation . The NSG decided in 1992 to require full - scope IAEA safeguards for any new nuclear export deals, which effectively ruled out nuclear exports to India, but in 2008 it waived this restriction on nuclear trade with India as part of the Indo - US civilian nuclear agreement . </P> <P> Pakistan did not view the test as a "peaceful nuclear explosion", and cancelled talks scheduled for 10 June on normalisation of relations . Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto vowed in June 1974 that he would never succumb to "nuclear blackmail" or accept "Indian hegemony or domination over the subcontinent". The chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Munir Ahmed Khan, said that the test would force Pakistan to test its own nuclear bomb . Pakistan's leading nuclear physicist, Pervez Hoodbhoy, stated in 2011 that he believed the test "pushed (Pakistan) further into the nuclear arena". </P>

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