Flexing the Indian Nuclear muscle. Humphrey Hawksley, a BBC correspondent recently visited Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay in Mumbai where over 15,000 people work in laboratories that are hewn under mountians, adding muscle to India's Nuclear arsenal. There, he is told that the pit - the nuclear element - is made at BARC.

Explaining th process of assembling a nuclear weapon, he is told, "The pit goes into the warhead. And the warhead is kept in another place. And the delivery system - that is an aircraft, a missile of a submarine - is in another place again. It would take something from six to eight hours - maximum 12 hours to get the complete weapon assembled and ready to launch. Then it would take about 11 minutes to impact on Pakistan."

This, coupled with the fact that India follows a no-first-use policy, clearly means that India is ready to absorb one nuclear strike, i.e. it's ready to sacrifice at least one city before it gathers its wits and weapons to hit back with everything its got!

So, which are the scapegoat cities??! ... the cities that are expendable... the ones whose loss can be thought of as just a collateral damage!