Gandhi: India may hold A-test on peaceful uses

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said in an interview published here that her country might again explode a nuclear device purely for testing its peaceful purposes.

She told the Japanese daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun that her government would conduct a test "when scientists consider it necessary."

Mrs. Gandhi said that India exploded a nuclear device in 1974 to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions in building a huge dam.

She said India had no intention of joining in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which she said had failed because of an increase in nuclear weapons.