Further testing is required for a variety of reasons, and I have indicated some of them in my second long post in this thread.
I don't disagree with that line of argument at all - the notion that the nation's survival hinges on weapons built after one set of desperately hurried, secretive tests conducted between passes of spy satellites, is alarming. I earn my rooh-afza by doing experimental stuff, and maybe I can think of 1 or 2 examples where something worked right on the first try - and then they failed on the second try.
OTOH, nothing would have been gained by going to another round of tests right away in 1998, so the decision to end the testing then was the only sane one. Hence there is no shame for the NDA if the 1998 tests were not "100% successes" and they still adopted a "voluntary moratorium" until things became different.
HOWEVER, I also believe firmly that other things take priority over conducting nuclear tests today, unless suitable opportunities arise where the tests can be clearly shown as driven by national security imperatives. Not long-term anything, but short-term imperatives. Until then, the nation has to depend on having a suitable number of weapons, each containing (or believed to contain) enough fissile/fusile material to threaten massive destruction on a scale that no nation can tolerate. As long as no data are unambiguously leaked on the actual weapon parameters, and someone can prove conclusively that the design will totally fail to go off, this constitutes enough of a deterrent.
This is not perfect deterrence, but it is a far better situation than having 100 "proven" megaton weapons or 1000 of 200KT TNs, but not being able to do a damn thing about a company of PLA engineers building a road right across Indian territory - because the conventional deterrence is absent and we can't make jet engines, artillery shells or snow boots, and there is no fuel to run the tanks and (imported) planes, and we don't have roads, our "National Highways" are goat-tracks, and even those get washed away every time it rains. Unfortunately, this is today's choice, driven by today's reality.
Today's GOI, continuing the "Insaniyat Over Insanity" theme famously declared by no less than Vajpayee, seems to believe that continuation of good relations and "good little nation" status is essential until technology and economic status enable consideration of a little more assertive stance. You, certainly, and I, probably, are not happy about this, but that's what the wisdom of the electorate approves - and as I point out, the NDA would do no better.
So it does not matter whether KS says the tests fizzled or were only 60% non-fizzle. The ground under Pokhran was definitely fried and the quakes caused were detected many miles away, as will happen to any Chinese or Pakistani base or city where such a thing might (Allah and Mao forbid!) go off in the event of genocidal aggression by China or Pakistan. Whether the radius of devastation is 500m or 1 km or 10 or 100km is debatable, but I really don't expect to be around to read the newspaper the day after this happens.
Meanwhile, "Insaniyat over Insanity" is the best policy to keep the enemy down until they are no longer enemies but are convinced to waste their time watching Bollywood movies and 20-20 krikit instead. So KS' statement was a blunt threat that if China doesn't stop meddling, and if the US doesn't back off with its stupid CTBT/NPT Snake Oil peddling, well... Indians are getting fed up with the duplicity and arrogance, and are about to go down the path of testing again.
That of course will end (a) US sales of nuclear and high-tech military anything to India - huge loss to US entities, (b) UK and Oiropean sales of high-tech and weapon systems, (c) boondoggle trips of Indian babucracy to US and Bhesht, resulting in a visible drop in high-end tourism to these places, (d) all efforts to salvage NPT-2 etc. Within weeks, Iran and NoKo will start/resume testing. Japan and Brazil may test. The whole NonProllotullah sand castles will come crashing down.
India will probably then go and solve the Pakistan problem, and the US will face total defeat in Afghanistan.
Does BO want to go down this path? Does he want CTBT so much, and does he want to appease the PRC so much? If not, it is time for BO to come to his senses, and do the right thing: Bomb Paahkisthaaan, as he so correctly says, and deal with Chinese duplicity and treachery as it should be dealt with, not by genuflexion.
Yes, KS said all that
if you just read and think carefully through his short statements.
Now back to the wailing and ranting...
.
. For India's sake, our current distinguished e-con-o-mist PM will also deliver like then.
on BRF is equated with covering and shivering acts synonymous with cowardliness; while every contentious decision which raises doubts about GOI's decision making is attributed to Chankianness.