Things have not really changed much for the common Indian or Pakistani since the nuclear tests. However, there has been an intensification of national pride. Also, people now live under an increased nuclear weapons threat. India has often justified its nuclear research in terms of its benefits for economic development. However, this argument holds less and less water as the real costs of nuclear energy are becoming clearer. It was not until 1939 that the amount of energy released by fission reactions got the interest of European and United States governments. Research led to the atom bomb and subsequently the Hiroshima explosion. Fifteen years later, five nations had successfully tested atom bombs. The threat of nuclear conflict gave rise to a new phase of nuclear development ?nuclear powered electricity. After 1953 industrialized nations began preaching peaceful uses of nuclear energy. This led to the spread of nuclear applications. It also provided social legitimacy to nuclear scientists. The US nuclear industry succeeded in demonstrating nuclear electricity was the most competitive option for producing electricity. The reality was that nuclear energy was one of the costliest ways to generate electricity. But for the next two decades, nuclear power was promoted as the ?only?? low cost panacea for humanity?s energy problems. The West?s nuclear establishments sold many nuclear power stations around the world. Many third world nations, including India, came to see nuclear power as a shortcut to industrialization. Propelled by continuing competition between nations, increasing insecurity, and spreading civilian applications of nuclear technology, a new wave of nuclear proliferation started. A total of 1,522 nuclear explosions were carried out by the five nuclear powers between 1945 and 1988. The political and military crisis of the mid-Seventies proved a turning point in nuclear history. The radioactive environment of industry sites posed a great risk to the health of workers and those living around the sites. The pressure to recognize this cost and that of providing expensive security slowed down the growth of nuclear industry. A new phase of nuclear recession began. Orders of nuclear power plants collapsed as costs increased. This continued until the early Nineties. In the last few years, with concern over global warming rising, proponents of nuclear power have advertised its potential to mitigate greenhouse emissions. They propose replacing fossil based electricity with nuclear power. However, there has been much research debunking early notions that nuclear energy is cheap, abundant, safe and peaceful in nature. The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in the US has done much to reveal the deceptions of nuclear power. It has shown that contrary to official and industry claims made in the Forties and Fifties of nuclear power being cheap, official studies of the time were pessimistic about the economic viability of nuclear power. Cold War propaganda rather than economic reasoning was the driving force behind the rush to build commercial nuclear plants in the US. The chairman of the US congressional joint committee on atomic energy warned in 1953 that it would be a major setback for his country if Russia came up with an atomic power station while the US was seen to be concentrating only on nuclear weapons. Studies showed that every major reactor design adopted had and continues to have unresolved safety problems. Nuclear states always deployed nuclear power plants before the technology had been properly developed. Nuclear power seemed cheap in the Sixties as a result of government subsidies, inadequate attention to safety and manufacturers? making heavy losses on initial orders. Costs increased when these advantages were reduced. Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to forces of social instability and political violence. Management of spent nuclear fuel is a key concern. The problem of high level nuclear waste remains unresolved and may be unresolvable. Nuclear power plants cannot simultaneously meet stringent safety criteria and also contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It will take decades to develop reactors safe enough to replace coal based electricity. Research shows it is possible to simultaneously phase out nuclear power plants and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel. Modern renewable energy technologies, natural gas based technologies, improved efficiency and management of power generation have the potential to solve this problem. But this will require official commitment of the sort displayed by the US government for nuclear power in the Sixties. Nuclear power is a more expensive and risky way to generate electricity than other commercial technologies like combined cycle natural gas and coal power plants. Even France, highly nuclear power dependent, admits combined cycle electricity plants are more economical than nuclear plants. Very long gestation periods of nuclear power plants add to the chances of breakdown. A reactor of one Kota nuclear power station had 251 breakdowns in nine years. The link between nuclear electricity development and nuclear weapons development is the biggest hurdle against international nonproliferation and disarmament. Plutonium, reprocessed in all commercial reactors, can be used to make nuclear weapons. Stocks of plutonium have grown rapidly over the years. Further investment in nuclear power development will only increase the problems of humanity. Nuclear energy is horrifyingly perilous. Significant excesses of respiratory cancer were observed in most uranium miners in the US. Excessive incidents of cancer, leukaemia and other diseases can be found in the 50,000 people living near the uranium mining area in Jadugoda, Bihar. In the absence of proper ways to store or reprocess nuclear fuel, nuclear weapons production activities and commercial industry have created millions of tons of dangerous wastes and roughly two billion cubic metres of contaminated soil and water. Incineration does not reduce radioactivity of wastes. The storage of wastes for reprocessing itself poses a risk as storage tanks are known to explode. The disastrous aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not stop Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China from developing nuclear arsenals. The 1964 Chinese nuclear test was triggered by the US nuclear threat and worsening relations with Soviet Union in the Fifties. Pakistan?s nuclear programme was a response to India?s nuclear programme. Hence the reason for which nations develop weapons ? ?creating deterrent against security threats from other nations or demonstrating its military might against other nations? ? cause further insecurity and push other countries to develop weapons. The US, while pressuring India and Pakistan to curb their nuclear capabilities, is developing a future generation of nuclear weapons with pure fusion technology. The signing of the comprehensive test ban treaty and proclamation of a no first use policy by various nations will not contain the nuclear race. The only solution lies in discarding nuclear energy totally. No new nuclear reactors should be built. Old reactors should be phased out. All nuclear weapons states should disband their arsenals and discontinue development activities in nuclear energy and weapons.