India Fires First Nuclear Long Ranged Missile

Posted on January 31, 2015 in Tech // 1 Comment

India is in the game, they first time successfully launched a long ranged test missile capable of carrying a nuclear missile that could reach China.

The Agni V — developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation — was first tested in April 2012.

Analysts say the Agni V has the range to strike any target on the Chinese mainland, including military installations in the far northeast.

India sees the rocket, which has a range of 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles), as a key boost to its regional power aspirations and one that narrows — albeit slightly — the huge gap with China’s missile systems.

“Successful test-firing of Agni V from a canister makes the missile a prized asset for our forces,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter after the test on an island off the eastern state of Orissa.

China and India have been long time enemies that stretch back decades.

The Sino-Indian War also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict, was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama.

India initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959.