structural:reformatting, stylistic:tone, structural:summarization
India and Pakistan

In South Asia, India and Pakistan have also engaged in a technological nuclear arms race since the 1970s. The nuclear competition started in 1974 with India detonating a device, codenamed Smiling Buddha, at the Pokhran region of the Rajasthan state. The Indian government called this test a " peaceful nuclear explosion ", but according to independent sources, it was actually part of an accelerated covert nuclear program of India.

This test generated great concern and doubts in Pakistan, with fear it would be at the mercy of its long-time arch-rival. Pakistan had its own covert atomic bomb projects in 1972 which ran for many years since the first Indian weapon was detonated. After the 1974 test, the pace of Pakistan's atomic bomb program significantly accelerated, culminating in successfully building its own atomic weapons. In the last few decades of the 20th century, India and Pakistan began to develop nuclear-capable rockets and nuclear military technologies. Finally, in 1998, India – under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government – test detonated five more nuclear weapons. Domestic pressure within Pakistan began to build and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered a test, detonating six nuclear weapons (Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in retaliation and to act as a deterrent.

According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature Food in August 2022, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill more than 2 billion indirectly by starvation during a nuclear winter.