The Secret of Nanda Devi | Hacker News Reader

The Secret of Nanda Devi

rockandice.com

98 pointsbookofjoe15 comments

Radioactivity needs to be treated with proper respect. But what is that? Because of the intimate ties between plutonium and global military dominance there is little reason to trust any info that comes out of the military on face value in this area, where "calming the public" is likely more important than a few (hundreds?thousands?) natives dying from radiation poisoning. [0]

Statements like "the lost material poses 'a miniscule threat' because the plutonium amount was relatively small and the dilution factor—even if the stuff gets into the Ganges—is so great" does nothing for me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atol...

Think that's crazy...? Look at PFOA:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...

What intrigued me when I first came across the story of Nanda Devi Device was the fluidity of India's non-alignment towards Soviet Union/USA. Sino-India war of 1962 showcased India's non-alignment led to its isolation with great powers ignoring what's going on in the region. I presume this had a greater role to play when India decided to work with USA to spy on China.

Then again situation reversed within a decade, during 1971 war to liberate East-Pakistan India had Indo-Soviet friendship treaty, USA sent carrier USS Enterprise under Task Force 74 to Bay of Bengal which was intercepted by Soviet Naval force, Nixon even sent a proposal for cooperation of Chinese army at borders; But China didn't act on it(Possibly on insistence by Soviet Union).

Now India's diplomatic strategy seems to have reversed again with greater alignment towards USA with every passing year especially with the neighbor to the North flexing again.

It's important to note the reversal in Indian politics in that time. India in the Bangladeshi war for Independence was led by Indira Gandhi, who later assumed Emergency powers and arrested a lot of her critics and activists, mostly from the RSS. India today is led by the same people she arrested back then.

That being said, Russia has always been close to India ever since the Soviet Era, even though India didn't embrace communism, largely because of the shared history of being opposed by the US at every step, and a mutual interest in curtailing China (which claims a significant part of Russian Amur as part of its Greater China project). For instance, Russia supported India during its first nuclear test, when the US imposed sanctions on it. Russia supported India's actions in Bangladesh as you mentioned, etc.

The current strong ties of India with the US are only because of the shared background of Modi and Trump in right wing politics, and now a shared urgency in containing China as much as possible.

> The current strong ties of India with the US are only because of the shared background of Modi and Trump in right wing politics

Not true. The friendship between India and US started blossoming during Clinton era, and continue to flourish under Bush as well as Obama

> The friendship between India and US started blossoming during Clinton era, and continue to flourish under Bush as well as Obama

And yet the US sanctioned India after Pokhran II, and Bush was actively selling weaponry to the Musharraf regime during Kargil. It was only during the Obama years that relations began to thaw.

Recently this was in news. There was a rumor that the plutonium device planted in Nanda Devi exploded and caused floods in India. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56102459

They can't explode though.

Satellite surveys suggest that the flood originated in the valley of the stream Raunthi, which is the first major confluence upstream of Reni village on the Rishi Ganga. This puts the origin of the flood at a tributary valley that's outside of any path the secret Nanda Devi expedition would have taken.

The rumour supposed that perhaps the plutonium capsules (which continue to generate heat by radioactive decay, since that's their purpose) had melted through ice and the meltwater deluged downstream. It's not improbable that this may happen someday, or that their presence perhaps already contributes meltwater into the Rishi Ganga, but the location of their demise is not the tributary valley where the February 2021 flood appears to have originated.

Part of the confusion is that the origin point of the flood was not immediately known, only that it came from somewhere within the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, a large nature reserve area that shares the name with the famous mountain contained within.

Plutonium doesn't explode on itself. Unless you pack it into the complicated mechanism of a nuclear bomb device. Other than that you can do what you want, wrapping it in explosives and firing them will just disperse the plutonium but it will not make a chain reaction.

I'm no expert on the subject, but do you think the plutonium being buried under several tons of ice could cause it to explode?

My layman’s understand is you need a neutron trigger to destabilize it rapidly, as well as a shell to contain it to get a stable chain reaction going. I think you typically need to be at the center of a an exploding star to see that happen just from pressure.

"Radioisotope thermoelectric generator" is what you want to understand. There are plenty of youtube videos on this topic.

On the subject of using mountaineers as spies, Sidney Wignall's "Spy on the roof of the world" is also interesting.

I recall reading in some random internet place that the Nazis also went on wild goose chases in the Himalayas... might have been a conspiracy forum (which means this "factoid" may be discarded at will; and some might argue that therefore it's immoral to repeat it)

In any case, as such matters are usually state secrets I can never really know, only imagine things.

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