BOMBAY, Sept 24: Raja Ramanna, the scientist who pioneered India's drive to become a nuclear power, died on Friday in Bombay at age 79, a hospital official said.

Ramanna supervised India's first nuclear test in the Pokhran desert of Rajasthan in 1974 and was the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, which is in charge of the nuclear programme.

"Ramanna was on a life support system which was withdrawn on Friday morning after which he was declared dead," said a senior official at Bombay Hospital where the scientist had been admitted earlier in the week.

He died of a heart attack, the official said. Handpicked by Homi Bhabba, the founder of India's nuclear programme, Ramanna established an international name through his academic work on nuclear fission.

In 1978, Ramanna visited Iraq and met soon-to-be-president Saddam Hussein. While Ramanna rarely spoke of his meeting with Saddam, his colleagues said the Indian declined an offer to work for Iraq - evidence, the scientific community says, that India's nuclear arsenal is in secure hands.

India conducted a new atomic test at Pokhran in 1998 and declared itself a member of the world's nuclear club, prompting a similar test from Pakistan and sanctions on the two countries.

Ramanna, who by 1998 had retired from the scientific community and had been appointed to parliament, said of the decision to go nuclear: "We no longer need to quote our ancient literature to feel proud." -AFP