The world in August 1945 was exhausted, battered, and holding its breath. For six years, the most destructive war humanity had ever seen had consumed cities, toppled empires, and stolen tens of millions of lives. Europe lay in ruins, its cities scarred with craters and charred buildings, its people worn thin from years of rationing …
In the arid heat of Rajasthan’s Pokhran desert, a seismic shift occurred beneath the surface—both literally and geopolitically. On May 11, 1974, India detonated its first nuclear device under the codename “Smiling Buddha,” marking its dramatic entry into the nuclear club. It was a moment of national pride, strategic assertion, and global unease. For India, …
