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Directions Q. 1 to 5: Read the following text and answer the following questions on the basis of the same:

India's atomic energy programme:

The atomic energy programme in India was launched around the time of independence under the leadership of Homi J. Bhabha (1909-1966). An early historic achievement was the design and construction of the first nuclear reactor in India (named Apsara) which went critical on August 4,

1956. India indigenously designed and constructed plutonium plant at Trombay, which ushered in the technology of fuel reprocessing (separating useful fissile and fertile nuclear materials from the spent fuel of a reactor). Research reactors that have been subsequently commissioned include ZERLINA, PURNIMA (I, II and III), DHRUVA and KAMINI. KAMINI is the country's first large research reactor that uses U-233 as fuel. The main objectives of the Indian Atomic Energy programme are to provide safe and reliable electric power for the country's social and economic progress and to be self-reliant in all aspects of nuclear technology. Exploration of atomic minerals in India undertaken since the early fifties has indicated that India has limited reserves of uranium, but fairly abundant reserves of thorium.

Accordingly, our country has adopted a three stage strategy of nuclear power generation. The first stage involves the use of natural uranium as a fuel, with heavy water as moderator. The Plutonium- 239 obtained from reprocessing of the discharged fuel from the reactors then serves as a fuel for the second stage - the fast breeder reactors. They are so called because they use fast neutrons for sustaining the chain reaction (hence no moderator is needed) and, besides generating power, also breed more fissile species (plutonium) than they consume. The third stage, most significant in the long term, involves using fast breeder reactors to produce fissile Uranium-233 from Thorium-232 and to build power reactors based on them.

India's atomic energy programme was launched by:

A) Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar

B) Homi J. Bhabha

C) Meghnad Saha

D) Daulat Singh Kothari