The Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile has a 3,500 km range, affording India an offensive capability to engage targets deep inside neighbouring countries

Sunday, February 7, 10.50 AM. Location: Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Orissa. The bright blue sky suddenly came alive amid a massive plume of smoke and deafening blast. India’s Agni-III surface-to-surface, Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) lifted off a fixed platform of Launching Complex-IV with the help of an auto-launcher on its way to reach an assigned surface target, 3,500 km away with pinpoint accuracy (in ballistic missile terms). A jubilant Integrated Test Range Director S.P. Dash announced: “The flight trial has met all its mission ob-jectives as expected.” It was indeed a text-book launch with the missile hitting accurately the designated target.

The third consecutive successful test out of the four conducted so far since the first firing in 2006 was significantly different in that in the test firing on February 7, it was for the first time that there was participation by Indian Army personnel. The aim and objectives of the trial also included testing the hybrid Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System for accurate guidance of the missile. Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Dynamics Limited, Agni-III has a 3,500 km range, affording India an offensive capability to engage targets deep inside neighbouring countries.

India’s declared ‘no-first use’ policy envisages a triad of nuclear counterstrike capability in its quest to acquire the so-called ‘Minimum Credible Nuclear Deterrence’. Capable of being launched from road-mobile transporter erector launcher and rail-mobile carriage launcher, the missile can be dispersed far and wide, continuously changing its position to provide the country the much needed robust ‘second-strike’ capability. A compact version of the missile, Agni-III SLBM (also known as K-X), is being developed by the DRDO as a submarine-launched version.