Buoyed By Agni-III Success, DRDO Seeks To Complete N-Triad By '11 By 2010-2011, India hopes to gatecrash into a very exclusive club of countries, which have both ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) as well as BMD (ballistic missile defence) capabilities. Only the US and Russia strictly qualify for this club as of now, if all the three capabilities
Former president A P J Abdul Kalam was on Sunday all praise for the "courage' shown by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in deciding to go for Pokhran tests within weeks of assuming office in March 1998. "Vajpayee gave us the permission within a week of assuming the political office, to establish India's expertise,' Kalam said at a function at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the
Activists of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) on Saturday demanded that India and Pakistan roll back their nuclear weapons programme and divert the "colossal funds' wasted on the arms race to development, education and people's welfare.
by K. Subrahmanyam I was a Consulting Editor of The Times of India on the day when the "Shakti' tests were conducted. A long-time friend of mine, who had been associated with me in campaigning for India exercising its nuclear option for over three decades, holding a high-level position, rang me up and informed me about the tests at 4.30 p.m. Straightaway I went back to the office as the official announcement was to be made by the Prime Minister at 5.30 p.m. I contacted my editorial colleagues and offered to write the editorial.
France was looking forward to "large-scale nuclear co-operation' with India in the civilian arena once India reached a satisfactory agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), French Ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said here on Thursday. France was even "ready to sign' a nuclear agreement with India, but only after India agreed to a safeguards agreement with the IAEA and received exemption from the NSG.
It was on May 11, 10 years ago, that the then NDA government announced India's formal entry into the nuclear club, with a set of underground tests that were followed by two more a couple of days later. The initial international reaction was wholly negative, as might have been expected, and it took a lot of diplomatic effort to ride out the storm.
The UPA-Left committee meeting on Indo-US nuclear deal ended as before without any positive decision on Tuesday. It has been decided to meet in New Delhi again on May 28 after the government made a vain bid to get the outside allies' support for going ahead with securing the India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee the Left members have sought more clarification on the civil nuclear agreement.
Failing to make much headway in its talks on the India-US nuclear deal, the UPA-Left committee on the pact has decided to undertake another round of negotiations on May 28 even as it becomes increasingly clear that time is running out as the tenure of the Bush administration comes to an end. The government indicated to the the Left parties that the nuclear deal was being squeezed for time and foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told them during the eighth meeting of the committee that problems were only going to grow in the coming days.
Missile Designed To Hit Targets In Range Of 3,500km In a move to somewhat bridge the stark strategic imbalance with China in terms of nuclear and missile arsenals, India is all set to test its most ambitious missile Agni-III on Wednesday. The countdown for the launch of Agni-III, designed to hit high-value targets deep inside China with a strike range of 3,500-km, has begun at the integrated test range on Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa.
